


The Return of the Return of the King

by PazithiGallifreya



Category: Galavant (TV), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Gen, a couple of Surprise characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 15:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20491205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PazithiGallifreya/pseuds/PazithiGallifreya
Summary: Or, that one where Richard's ancestry is more interesting than "a god and a mermaid," actually.There's also some giant spiders, some gerblins, and a bit of D'Dew, and a few moral quandaries thrown in just for fun.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One: The "Major Character Death" tag is not for Richard or Roberta or Tad Cooper, so don't fret if that's what you're worried about.
> 
> Two: I wrote this supremely self-indulgent bit of waffle wholly and entirely for myself and my own amusement, and as such I shan't be held accountable for things like "quality" and "good taste" in here, and it's not heavily edited because I wrote what I felt like writing, dammit. You can read it too if you want, though, just don't bother complaining if it doesn't suit your taste cos I’m not changing anything. If you pay attention to some of the little off-hand comments and implications in the show, it's obvious that Richard is a deeply weird man, and I do nothing to skirt around that in this story because I like him that way. If you see any typos you can write them down on a bit of paper and slip them under the door along with any snacks you have to spare, though.
> 
> Three: there's one solitary lemon-flavored paragraph at the very end of chapter one, but if you skip over that bit, it's a solid T-rating through the rest. (And don't worry about Richard, Roberta takes good care of him and he gets his in the end, they're just neither of them in much of a hurry these days.)

“What am I even _doing_, Bobbie?” Richard slumped over the table, pinching at the bridge of his nose as his head throbbed from the tension.

Roberta leaned against her husband, reaching up to knead softly at the nape of his neck to ease some of the tension there. “Your job, I believe. Nobody ever said it would be a simple one, I'm afraid.” Richard relaxed slightly, let his head fall forward to thump onto his crossed arms over the table and let out a soft whine, feeling exhaustion settle into his bones. Roberta continued massaging at his neck with one hand, pressing her knuckles into the worst knots as he hummed to himself.

Little Pearl was in Roberta's lap, biting at a wooden toy rabbit that Galavant and Isabella had gifted her during a brief visit earlier. Their nine month old daughter (unexpected at Roberta's age, but certainly not unwelcome) was still teething, the bottom two already having made an appearance and more expected soon, and neither of them had been getting quite enough sleep of late. They had hired on a nanny, but neither of them were inclined to leave Pearl with the young woman when they could avoid it. Richard felt guilty enough about the times they had no choice, as the demands on their time were many and varied.

Roberta remembered the day Pearl was born. Unwilling to be separated from her, Richard had bucked tradition and forced his way into the room, despite the protests of the midwife. He'd spent most of the time in varying levels of panic, but forgot it all immediately when Roberta finally handed their daughter to him. Despite being fairly out of it after hours of labor, she still recalled her husband's first words to their child - _I won't ever ignore you like my parents did to me, I promise._

For two years and a few months now, they'd lived in this homely little castle (more an old fort of some kind, in truth), not too far removed from the border between Richard's former kingdom and neighboring Hortensia to the south. It was an isolated place – plopped down like a haphazardly thrown rock in a large field partially bordered by a curving creek and surrounded by forest. The snow-covered peaks of high mountains lay along the horizon to the north, and the wide mouth of a river of some long forgotten name let out to open ocean beyond the edge of the forest perhaps twenty miles to the south. Further south and a bit to the east, beyond the river, the forest thinned to savanna, and many more miles still, it became the dry scrub desert where Isabella's young cousin ruled Hortensia.

The stones of the castle were of a dark color and did not resemble the lighter gray bedrock of the region, and must have been brought from some further source, although Roberta could not even guess as to where. The original roof had long ago rotted away, but the walls were still as sturdy as the day they'd been built. The nearby forest had provided ample timber for repairs and with a bit of help, they'd turned it into a home over the course of several weeks. Richard, as ever was a bit clumsy, but had managed to pitch in with extensive guidance. Roberta still smiled at the sight of him trying to learn how to drive a nail under the tutelage of a soon exasperated apprentice carpenter. He'd only ended up with two bandaged fingers that first day, at least.

Despite its remote location, people managed to find it. Knights and squires and ambitious soldiers had washed up on their doorstep with some regularity, along with many common folk simply looking for work, all with stars in their eyes and tales of the One True King ringing in their ears. They all came wanting to be part of something. Richard had never really intended to raise another army for himself, his taste for war soured entirely after that wretched mess with Madalena and the squadron of half-rotting re-animated dead. He'd fought willingly, and would do so again if the need was there, but it wasn't as much fun when you were in the middle of it yourself, instead of sitting on a comfortable throne reading some commander's report of “progress” over snacks and a nightcap. Still, the improvised army came in handy from time to time, although it was never their first choice - in trying to broker peace, the King and Queen were successful perhaps half of the time. People were stubborn, and a fancy sword and title only did so much in the end. The rest was simply a lot of work, a lot of negotiation, both of them half making it all up as they went along, and occasionally taking said army (or a dragon) out to make a point.

The surrounding fields were cultivated and grazed by more of the displaced and dispossessed at the moment, peasants who followed them back from the wrecked and burned fields and villages where they arrived too late or failed to be convincing enough. The farms kept the castle (and Tad Cooper) fed in return. It wasn't exactly a lavish lifestyle, nothing like Richard had once had, but it was enough.

Richard tilted his head where it lay against his crossed arms, peering up sideways at his wife and daughter beside him from under his long eyelashes. Pearl was now suckling at Roberta's breast and threatening to drift off to sleep in her mother's arms. He was envious of her for a brief moment, then felt suddenly ridiculous over being jealous of his own baby. This One True King business was turning out to be a right pain in Richard's backside, though. In those brief moments he thought of abandoning his efforts, a heavy guilt settled in his belly as the unseeing eyes of every slain peasant or too-young dead soldier he'd seen stared back mournfully at him from the depths of his memory. _What sort of world do you want Pearl to live in? Or anyone else, for that matter? This is no time to become lazy again!_

The surrounding kingdoms had been beating the shit out of each other for centuries now, trading off role of aggressor and victim in turn, with the occasional lull in between when there were no longer enough young men of conscriptable age left standing, but never building any lasting peace. The tutor he'd had briefly when he was a child had told him that once all of the seven kingdoms had been part of one vast kingdom, ranging all the way to the north where ocean froze, and that many of the piles of rubble dotted across the lands had once been great cities and fortifications. There had been a high king, he said, who had reigned over it all, and that many of his descendants had ruled, too, in peace. Then, somehow, it all fell apart roughly six hundred years ago. Nobody was certain why. Nothing of that time period written was saved, as far as anyone knew, at least not in any language that was still understood.

In all likelihood, Richard thought, people had simply become bored, had gotten greedy, and in all ways did what men (and sometimes women - he thought of Madalena in particular) always do when they have more money and power than good sense. Hell, he'd done it himself for thirty-five years. All the bad advice Gareth had ever given him was no excuse, really. He'd certainly had no good sense, none that he listened to at any rate, forever trying to live up to the expectations of others. He'd gotten his second chance to fix some of his screw-ups, and he intended not to squander it, but damned if it wasn't tiresome. Richard turned, squeezing his eyes shut again and groaning in frustration.

“Pup-pup, try not to let it wear you down. They'll be leaving tomorrow, I should think.”

“If they don't, I'm feeding them all to Tad Cooper. And really, what do they want from me, anyhow? Why can't Isabella just call off her cousin? I mean I do understand why her parents expect me to help fix their kingdom, I did sort of make a mess of it and all, but Harry can hardly blame _me_ for Madalena's little d'dew fit! And _I _certainly didn't hire these bandits he's complaining of. If Harry bothered giving his own army real weapons-”

“Isabella can't tell him off because he's officially a king now, and Isabella, as I recall, abdicated her claim to Valencia's throne when she married Galavant to go live in a cottage somewhere, and is technically not even a princess anymore. Besides, Harry has a point – the bandits are spilling out of the forest to the east of here and crossing that river to raid their borderlands, not to mention slaughtering their merchant caravans as they travel north. I know technically it is the responsibility of that president to do something about it, but they're too busy arguing with each other and holding votes over every minute decision at the moment to do anything useful... You know, I kept telling them they'd do better to vote for a few people to represent them and make decisions instead of all crowding into that hall every time someone wants to scratch their arse, but they wouldn't listen to a mere _woman_, of course...”

Richard pushed himself upright, rolling his eyes heavenward. “Ugh, _democracy_. What's up with that, anyway? All they do is argue, argue, argue... And you have more sense than ten men put together, their loss if they won't listen. Honestly, they could get more done if someone just took _control_-”

Roberta shook her head, not wanting to get into another argument over his former subjects' decision to see after their own affairs (other than the women, of course, and anyone who wasn't white and at least moderately wealthy, because even after “freeing” themselves, they couldn't be bothered to_ free themselves _and oh dear, she was about to start ranting herself). Richard still took their rejection of his rule quite personally. Roberta was grateful he'd at least been mature enough to let it go to the point of not rushing in with an army (or dragonfire) to subdue them, but he still routinely groused about it over dinner. “Richard, that's not really the point. There's a problem, right now, people are being hurt and killed, and we have the ability to help fix it. So I suggest we just go and do the job, hm? Somebody ought to, and Harry, quite frankly, is just not up to it. He isn't really all that much older than you were when you were put on the throne, you know, and you remember how well that went? You are in a position to give him the support and guidance you never got, and that's not a bad thing, right?”

Richard rubbed at his beard while he mulled over his wife's words. “I suppose so. Harry's a bit... well, I don't think he's quite as bad as I was at that age. Of course, when I was thirteen, it was still my mother who was really running things, I mostly just sat there looking stupid and trying to keep my father's crown from slipping down over my eyes...”

“Harry might not have Gareth whispering in his ear to lop the heads off anyone who looks at him cross-eyed or to kidnap some random woman to be his wife, but he also quite clearly does not have the first clue how to run a kingdom. He's obsessed with sweets and games and doesn't even know how to spell 'economy,' much less know what one is. And he certainly doesn't know what to do with a pack of vicious bandits picking off villages and travellers on the border of his kingdom. His army still have wooden swords, for goodness' sake!”

“Well, wood's a step up from chocolate, isn't it?” Richard crossed his arms over his chest, looking very much like a sulky boy himself at the moment, despite the grey in his beard. “And why can't he just say that he needs help, instead of rolling in here uninvited with a hundred servants to be fed and housed for the better part of a week and _demanding_-”

“Richard, what would you have done, back then? He's doing what he's always done; he just doesn't know any better! Remember what I said earlier this week? About setting a better example? What you do is as important as what you say – far more important, really. You've done well this week and I'm proud of you, but the job isn't over.”

Richard chewed anxiously at his lower lip. “It just never ends – as soon as we get one problem fixed, something else breaks, it's like a whole yuletide parade of problems! You know, I miss parades, the fun ones with clowns and dancing bears, not the problem ones.... Anyway, who are these bandits? How does anyone even live over there? It's nothing but woods and old ruins, Bobbie, and has been as long as anyone remembers. Some weird tales about ghosts and such in that direction, you'd think even bandits would stay away.” Richard shuddered at the thought. “I don't like ghosts...”

“Does anybody? Other than necromancers, I suppose. We'll take Tad Cooper, if that makes you feel better. I'm sure with the soldiers' help, we can push out a few lousy highwaymen. The knights have been bored lately, anyway, it'll be good exercise for them to have a little march-about. Think of it as a holiday, hm? Can't be any worse than last month, I never want to hear about cows or turnip fields again as long as I live, honestly it's like nobody's ever heard of a fence!” Roberta paused, clearing her throat noisily as if trying to clear the digression by force before she could really start ranting. “Anyway, I've never been in that direction, myself, I wouldn't mind seeing it. I'm sure the ghost stories are exaggerated, as usual.”

Richard shrugged, reaching over to brush a lock of hair away from his now sleeping daughter's face. “I suppose we'll have to leave Pearl with her nurse again. We just got home two weeks ago, she'll forget what we look like at this rate.”

Roberta sighed, shifting Pearl in her arms and pulling her dress back over her breast. “She'll be fine, Audrey is very good with her.”

“But what if you lose your milk again? Pearl is still little, she still needs you...”

Roberta bit her tongue, pressing down her impatience. “I still have some of the herbs Neo of Sporin gave us last time, Richard, it'll be fine. Pearl will be fine.” _And I love our daughter but if you think I'm going to nurse her until she's nine years old like her namesake did with you, you'll have to think again_, she added to herself. She doubted Richard would wait that long to get them back all to himself, anyway, given his enthusiasm for tits in general and for her tits in specific. _That greedy mouth of yours..._

Roberta flushed slightly, feeling vaguely ashamed at her own uncharitable thoughts. Richard had his eccentricities and personal quirks, she knew. He suffered enough for them under the judgment of others, mostly because Galavant couldn't shut up when he was drunk and had made Richard's forty-five years of virginity common knowledge in the seven realms. She sort of wanted to beat the retired knight to a bloody pulp for it, not because she thought Richard ought to be ashamed simply for being himself, but because the frequent innuendo and occasional outright mockery he received still cut him. Richard had long since forgiven his friend, though, and pressed her to let go. She was... trying to. At any rate, as far as quirks among the upper classes go, she knew of far worse (and violent) among many of the nobility she'd known over the years. _At least he doesn't get his jollies torturing the poor like the rest of those blood-hungry jackals_.

Who was she kidding, anyway? She was a queen who insisted upon raising her own child, who spent half of her free time sparring with the squires (and knocking them flat on their useless arses) and preferred trousers to dresses when she wasn't holding court. They were a pair, the two of them - the weirdies who were trying to change the natural order of things, largely on the basis of one of them having a fancy sword and a desire to become more than his past. The powers that be were not going to let that happen easily.

* * *

“Yes, good, I'm sure you will get rid of the pesky little bandits, no problem! Do bring me a present, ta -ta!”

Richard's grin looked more like the rictus of a corpse as he waved off little King Harry, although Roberta doubted anyone else would notice the lines of tension at the corners of his eyes. The sun was still hot this time of year and sweat was gathering under Roberta's collar. King Harry's sedan chair was hefted up onto the shoulders of four burly (and barely dressed) men, and hauled toward the outer gates of the castle. The rest of his retinue milled around for a moment trying to order themselves, then fell in line and began their exit as well.

Roberta kept one hand on Richard's tense back as he watched the diminutive neighboring king's ridiculously oversized entourage depart. Richard was anxiously gripping at the hilt of his sword at his belt. The moment of their guests' departure couldn't come soon enough, for either of them. Roberta could always tell when Richard was beyond done when he started chewing his own lower lip bloody at the corners. If she didn't get him somewhere quiet to unwind soon, he would likely be unable to sleep come nightfall, and tomorrow was going to bring trouble enough as it was. As the last of Harry's party finally departed the gates of their home, she pulled Richard back inside, bypassing the great hall and heading straight for their private rooms.

“We should have supper with the knights, Bobbie, especially since we'll be asking for their help in the morning.”

“You're fatigued, pup-pup, they can eat without you one evening. I'll ask the chef to send our supper up.”

“I'm fine! Really, it's not a problem.”

Roberta pulled a handkerchief from the small purse hanging from her belt and dabbed at the corner of Richard's mouth, bringing it away enough for him to see the red stain, and raised one eyebrow. Richard's shoulders slumped in defeat at being caught out.

“You push yourself too hard, Richard. I know you want to be a good king but you're still only one man.”

Richard fidgeted where he stood for a moment before giving in. “Fine. Fine! You talk to the chef, and I'll go fetch Pearl from the nursery.”

Roberta stalled him with a hand on his arm. “Pearl will be fine with Audrey tonight. We haven't had much time together in the last couple of months, Richard.”

Richard's lower lip stuck out in a convincing impression of a pouting toddler. “We'll be gone who knows how long after tomorrow, I'd like-”

“We haven't had much time _together_ in the last couple of months, Richard. You'll have time enough to play with Pearl tomorrow.” She gave him what she hoped was a meaningful look.

Richard blinked. “But we've... oh. _oh_. Ah. Yes. That.”

Roberta managed to hold in her laughter for about half a second before it slipped out anyway. It always took him a minute or two, but he got there eventually.

* * *

Roberta had been married once before, many years ago. Her parents had arranged it when she'd turned twenty and had turned down three suitors already, and they'd gotten fed up with her indecision. He'd been the second son of some other minor noble family, and her parents had told her she should be grateful they'd been able to find her a decent match at all, given the overall declining quality (in their expert opinion) of the sons of the nobility in these late days.

In truth, it hadn't been awful, but neither had it been anything more than utterly mundane. She hadn't loved him, not really. He'd been mostly decent, if boring, not to mention unattractive. The sex had been... well, something she chosen to endure, because it was expected and she had been too unsure of herself at that young age to consider objecting. He'd been perfunctory, somewhat rough. Mostly, he'd seemed largely uninterested in her, and it had been blessedly infrequent, especially as he'd spent much of his time on hunting trips with a group of cousins and friends (and in light of what she'd learned of Richard's father, she now had certain suspicions as to why he'd been so frequently absent, but that was neither here nor there...). Roberta had not missed him during those absences, to say the least. Ten months had passed since the wedding when one evening the hunting party had returned with darkened faces and her husband's horse carrying something bulky wrapped in cloth and slung over its back. At first she'd thought it was a deer, but it had not been a deer. He'd fallen from his horse, they said, and hit his head on a large stone beside a creek. He'd died instantly and had not suffered. In the following days, Roberta had struggled to act like an appropriately bereaved widow, managing to shed a few tears at the burial. She had been genuinely sorry that the man had died so young, and felt it was an unfair and meaningless death, but she had not mourned the end of a marriage not of her choice. She still felt a twinge of guilt sometimes over the fact that her most prominent emotion during the aftermath of his death had been relief. At least her parents had not spoken to her of the matter of marriage again.

Roberta had taken a discreet lover from time to time in the intervening years. Sometimes men, sometimes women, but none of her clandestine relationships had lasted for long. Some of those lovers had been gentle, some forceful, but none had she tolerated disrespect from. Richard, though... Richard was vastly different from any of them. It would be difficult to put into words precisely what that difference was, had she even been willing to try and explain to anyone else – which she wasn't, as far too many ignorant tongues wagged at her husband's expense as it was, and she had grown defensive of their privacy. At first she had chalked it up to a lack of experience, but after more than two years of marriage, she was certain it wasn't that. These days, she was more inclined to chalk his previous lack of experience up to whatever-it-was that made him different, whatever-it-was that had drawn her to him even as a child. She wasn't worried about disrespect from him, at any rate. Hesitance, sometimes, occasionally wavering attention as his mind flitted about from one thing to another or became fixated on something odd, as it was wont to do, but not disrespect, nor did she have cause to doubt his love or devotion.

She recalled a moment just weeks after their wedding, during court when she'd let her mind wander a bit too much, and had watched one of their visitors perhaps too closely for too long, only to turn and find Richard staring at her, a half-smiling, quizzical expression on his face. “What's so funny?” she'd asked him. He'd shrugged, smiled at her more openly, showing his teeth, then turned back to face their guests in the busy great hall. It was later, when they'd put out the lamps and gone to bed and he'd curled around her from behind that he answered her question. “Am I imaging things, or did Lady Caroline's husband catch your eye this afternoon? Or was it perhaps Lady Caroline herself?” She'd stiffened, worried she'd upset him or inflamed his jealousy. “No! Of course not. I mean... alright, fine, he has a shapely bottom, and Carly has a nice figure, but I wouldn't-” Her flustered babbling had been cut off first by his laughter, then his mouth as he leaned over and kissed her. Afterward, he'd taken to guessing who, out of their many varied guests, might appeal to her, leaning over the armrest of his throne to whisper in her ear and grin... It was astounding to her, really, as she could not imagine any other man she'd ever met engaging in such a game with his wife. Well... he'd always enjoyed games, after all. Strange, too, was that the reverse was never true, those few times she tried to return the play. Not once did anyone who passed through their court seem to appeal to him at all. “What did you first like about me, then?” she'd finally asked one evening, curious as to what had actually caught his attention. He'd spent several long moments mulling over the question, and finally shrugged at her. “You're Bobbie,” was all he'd said.

There were times he came to her, but more often it was the other way around. Tonight, she'd had the maid clear away the plates after supper but leave the bottle of wine, which they were currently working their way through in bed, taking sips in between other entertainments. Roberta had finished off about two thirds of the bottle on her own (and it was definitely going to her head), as Richard's mouth was rarely unoccupied with other matters long enough to bother._ That greedy mouth of yours indeed._ There were advantages to having a husband such as hers. He could spend ages simply kissing her – her mouth, her neck, a dozen other spots, and certainly her breasts. He still occasionally forgot (conveniently, she suspected) that they were, for the time being, more or less off-limits. She let him get away with it for a few minutes but had to push him off after sneaking a taste, eliciting a somewhat ridiculously adorable mewl of protest.

It had indeed been a while since they'd had the time to indulge themselves – it seemed like the last two or three months had just been rushing from putting out one fire to another, and tomorrow would likely bring more of the same, so neither of them were now in much of a hurry. He seemed determined to re-memorize every inch of her in great detail tonight. It had taken quite a while to get him to move further south where he could do her the most good (not that she hadn't appreciated the journey) but he was well settled in now, humming away happily as he went, and the wine goblet in her hand was threatening to slip from her fingers entirely. It was a good thing they'd long since given up caring about the state of the bed linens. The laundress was good at getting stains out of the expensive cotton, but there were limits to her talents. A few drops of wine were hardly the worst thing she'd seen. Richard, when “busy” as he was, currently, often seemed almost to forget himself, his arousal mostly going unnoticed while a prodigious damp spot grew beneath it. _I really ought to do something about that soon_, she briefly thought, as his tongue swiped over her again in just the right spot and the wine goblet clattered onto the flagstones.


	2. Chapter 2

“Alright, you have your orders. We march out tomorrow morning!” Roberta shouted over the courtyard from where she stood with Richard on the parapet in the morning sunshine, and watched a flock of squires scatter and rush off all at once to begin packing their knights' gear and supplies down in the courtyard below. After they'd discovered this place and made a home here, they'd had barely more than a month before word got out (again, thanks to Galavant's alcohol-loosened tongue) and the first of the “pilgrims” arrived. Most of those early arrivals had been knights with their squires, eager to pledge themselves to a character out of a legend. Richard had been somewhat bemused by the steady trickle of arrivals, although not wholly displeased (let it not be said that his ego had entirely disappeared). Yet he'd been at a loss as to what he ought to do with them. Gareth had chosen commanders to be in charge of his first army, and Richard had not had much to do with his soldiers on a daily basis back then, other than to make an appearance and look at them from time to time, if only to remind them that he was still their king.

Roberta slid into the role of Commander-in-Chief almost by accident a few months in. Richard had deferred to her judgment at first, repeating her suggestions as commands, then eventually stepped back almost entirely to simply leave her to a task for which she was better suited than himself. He trusted her, he said, not to do anything he wouldn't do. Sometimes he'd follow her though, as she commanded them, and would stand and watch her out of the corner of his eye more than he watched the knights and soldiers, a slight affectionate tilt to his mouth that those below wouldn't be able to see.

To their east, there was a creek which they would cross on the morrow, and beyond it, the overgrown track of an ancient road running parallel to the river and deep into a poorly mapped land. There were no good roads in this largely uninhabited region, so this was the path their little army would take under the direction of one of the older knights whom Roberta trusted. Sir Leofwine was no younger than sixty (and possibly much older, she'd not been bold enough to ask), though hardy despite his years. The list of his deeds was long enough to gain the respect of the younger knights despite his grey hair. Roberta had, in fact, known him for decades, as he'd been a friend of her father's. She'd learned the earliest of her swordplay from him when she was a girl. It had been a jest at first – she'd taken a wooden sword from some boy and claimed it for herself, and had slipped away from her parents into the field where the local knights trained their squires. She had been six years old. There, Leofwine had laughed at her antics, then set her beside his own squire. She'd taken it all quite seriously in the way only a small child can, taking no notice of the mirth of those around her. She would be a knight too, she'd declared.

Leofwine admitted to her, only recently, that he'd taken it as a child's flight of fancy, and had not expected her to return, and was shocked when she did, nearly every week, for years. Shieldmaidens were not unheard of, although it was something considered unseemly in these later days, a relic of a less civilized past. Her mother had been horrified at it all, but her father had given his permission, and being rather old fashioned about such things, her mother had deferred to her husband, if not gracefully. Roberta suspected if her parents had managed to have a real son, her father might not have been so amused by it. She missed her parents, in truth, despite their somewhat complicated relationship. _I wish they still lived,_ she thought, _at least long enough to meet their granddaughter_.

Pearl squirmed in Richard's arms beside her, bored with the proceedings. The child wasn't walking yet, but she was already quite inquisitive, and was often restless. She already had her father's temperament – mostly cheerful, but distractible and prone to boredom and occasional temper. Her husband shifted Pearl up against his shoulder as he turned away from the parapet to go back indoors. Barely a moment later, he squealed sharply as Pearl grabbed hold of the gold earring he still (foolishly) wore. Roberta tutted and immediately moved to pry Pearl's fingers off of the jewelry. “I know I've asked you not to wear that thing when you're holding her, Richard, this is why!”

“But I've always worn it! It was my father's, you know, he said I could keep it if I didn't cry when he put it in. I think it must have been the only time I managed to stop myself from crying when I really wanted to, as a child. I just wanted him to be proud of me, you know? And he let me keep it, so he must've been, he barely ever noticed me. Come to think of it, he may have been drunk that night, it was the only thing he ever gave me... ”

“Well, you got his crown, didn't you?”

“Only because my stupid jerk brother refused it to run off and have his precious _adventures_. Father didn't give it to me, I just ended up with it. Probably rolled over in his freshly dug grave, I was never good enough for him or for mother, not like precious perfect prince Kingsley...”

Roberta sighed, regretting bringing it up. His family's rejection was still a sore spot for Richard, despite all the time that had passed, and probably always would be. That they were all dead, now, and she wasn't sure if that made it better or worse. “Kingsley is gone, Richard, and you are here. And he never got the Hero Sword, now did he?”

Richard swapped Pearl to his right shoulder, a safer distance from his sore left ear. Pearl began chewing on his hair, and after two attempts to remove it from her mouth, he gave up and left her to it. “True, I suppose. I wonder why he didn't, though? He was the older son, you'd think he'd have pulled it out of that stump ages ago. He always thought he was the best at everything, you think he'd have given it a try at least.”

Roberta paused for a moment, mulling over whether to voice her true suspicions on the matter or not. “Richard, he very well might have tried, and failed.”

“That makes no sense, though, he was the first-born son, and all I ever heard about while growing up is how we were descended from a god and a mermaid, it would have gone to him first I'm certain. It's always about bloodlines, right? Which actually is a bit stupid like those democracy people said, now that I think about it, but it still _matters_. I mean, for magic swords, I guess...”

“Has it ever occurred to you that _you_ might be descended from... whatever it might have been, but perhaps Kingsley wasn't? I do remember seeing your father in the castle, when we were children. You look quite a lot like him now, actually. Kingsley didn't look a damn thing like you or your father, and only resembled your mother slightly, and as I recall, your parents, miraculously for royalty, weren't related to one another at all. As for Kingsley, I'm not sure _your_ father was _his_ father, if you catch my meaning.”

Richard blinked, absorbing the information while Pearl traded a now-sodden lock of his hair for her own fingers. “I, that is... no. Just _no_, Bobbie. He was definitely my brother. Not that he cared for that fact at all. And mother wouldn't have... Well, she wouldn't have done _that!_”

“Maybe Kingsley hated you so much because he saw you as a threat? Worried your father might eventually figure out that he only had one son, and that he wasn't it? Maybe that's why he didn't want the crown, in the end, he knew he didn't really belong on that throne? And I do recall your mother having a few, ah, 'special friends.' With your father off at the Enchanted Forest with 'Uncle' Keith so often, it wouldn't surprise me if she got a bit lonely.”

Richard fell silent and pensive and Roberta could see the muscles of his jaw twitching at the side of his head as he thought over what she'd said. She knew he was trying to reconcile a swath of contradictory memories against what he believed. When it came to other people's romantic dalliances, he was, she hated to admit, more than a bit oblivious. If she hadn't finally confessed her feelings to him in plain language over Galavant's (temporarily) dead body that day in Neo of Sporin's laboratory, he might never have figured out that she liked him. He hardly ever noticed it when someone was blatantly flirting with him or with someone else, and picked up on more subtle cues even less.

Flopping onto a bench nearby, Richard stared out at the forest on the horizon beyond the castle walls and surrounding fields, rubbing idly at his daughter's small back as she nodded off to sleep against him. “Kingsley wouldn't have cared one whit about it, even if he were a bastard. He took whatever he wanted, and if he'd wanted father's throne, he'd have had it one way or another. And mother....” Richard sighed, suddenly wondering why he even cared. His mother hadn't loved him and hadn't loved his father, either. She'd cared about herself and she'd cared about Kingsley. Richard had rated as a distant afterthought at best, at least until he'd been crowned and made a convenient puppet for her to wield power through. And then she'd gone and died of some sort of fever, and left him with Gareth and a country full of ambitious nobles scenting blood on the air. “Oh, bugger it. Why am I trying to defend her? Maybe she did do... _that_. Too late to matter now, anyway, they're all dead, none of them will ever know anything about, well...”

He sniffled a bit and wiped a stray tear away as Roberta sat down beside him. He leaned into her as she wrapped an arm around his waist. “I do believe you were meant to be here, Richard, and that is a comforting thought for me, at least. And we will pack up and go out tomorrow and show that obnoxious little cousin of Isabella's what being a king ought to be, hmm?”

* * *

“She'll be fine, Richard. Now let Audrey take her, Tad Cooper is waiting for us in the courtyard.”

Richard had spent most of the morning playing with their daughter, fussing over his packing, and generally procrastinating as much as possible. The sun was climbing higher across the sky and if they wanted to cover any sort of ground before noon, they needed to get moving. Audrey stood awkwardly to the side, waiting for her charge to be handed off, and Roberta felt a twinge of sympathy for the young woman, who had been standing around for nearly an hour now waiting on her husband. Richard gave the baby one last whiskery kiss to the cheek and reluctantly passed her over to the nursemaid. When Pearl began fussing and crying as they picked up their packs and crossed the room, Roberta grabbed Richard's arm firmly and pulled him toward the door. “She'll settle down again once we've left. She's _fine_.”

“Oh, I know, I just...”

“I don't like leaving her either, Richard, but it's too dangerous to take her with us. I'm sure it won't be long before we return, it's only a bandit den after all.”

They were waved off by various servants as they passed through the castle, making their way down to the courtyard. The knights with their squires and the soldiers had all mustered in the field just outside the outer gates and were no doubt getting bored waiting on them. Leofwine would be riding on his bay charger at the front to lead them all.

Roberta and Richard, however, would be leaving on the back of Tad Cooper, who was now easily double the size of a large horse. His wings had come in a year and a half ago and he was turning out to be a reasonably agile flier despite his somewhat awkward appearance. He'd had a gawky phase as he gained length and height, but lately seemed to have stopped growing so quickly, and was now filling out nicely. Oh, and yes, he could breathe fire. Richard had scolded him last year after he set a farmer's field on fire. Roberta was just thankful it hadn't reached the tree line and set the forest ablaze before they were able to put it out. The resulting shortage of carrots had been unfortunate, though.

Richard secured their packs and swung up into the saddle a local leatherworker had fashioned for them and reached down to help Roberta up to sit in front of him. Roberta pulled a round crystal out of the pouch on her belt and gave it a shake. A few moments later, Leofwine's face appeared within it. “Ah, good, it seems to be working! Richard, remind me to thank Edwin next time we see him.”

Leofwine grinned and the view shifted as the knight lifted the crystal to point at the crowd behind him, before returning to his face. “We're all ready to go, my queen. We'll be marching the east road behind you, just let me know when you find what we're looking for and we can coordinate a response from there.”

Roberta glanced back and nodded to Richard, who tapped his heels twice against the dragon's flanks. Tad Cooper leapt from the ground, gave his wings a few strong beats, and launched them all into the air with a roar that sent flocks of birds bursting out of the forest around them in a panic.

* * *

The forest grew thicker beneath them the further east they travelled, and often the old road upon which their little army marched behind them could not be seen. They had a vague idea of where they might be going, and largely navigated by keeping the line of the mountains to their left, and the distant river, on those occasions the sunlight glinted upon its surface, to their right.

The bandits would be hiding out near some sort of water source. Perhaps near the river, or one of its smaller tributaries, or a pond or spring. There was a broad valley well ahead of them, at least according to their maps, where the mountains turned almost ninety degrees to head north, and the river as well, and on the far side of the river, another mountain chain marking the eastern border of the realm. Roberta remembered looking at maps in her father's small library as a child. This area had no name which was now remembered, and it was known only as the eastern reaches of Richard's former kingdom. It was thickly forested and had something of an unsavory reputation. There were, hidden among the trees, tumbled-down stone ruins dotted across the landscape, waiting for those adventurers who sought them out, usually hoping to find some sort of treasure which had not already been looted in previous centuries. Some histories claimed it was once the home of great cities and a king who had reigned over all. Throughout the centuries since that fabled one kingdom fractured into seven (if it had ever existed), it had been emptied of its inhabitants through successive wars and was now rumored to be home only to exiles and hermits, and strange, wild men who swore fealty to no one.

And bandits, of course. There were always bandits. There were a few roads, better kept than the one they were currently following, to be sure, mostly cutting from south to north through the river valley toward friendlier regions. They were travelled mostly by merchant caravans bringing goods from the south – spices, silks and textiles, incense, other such exotic items to trade for more mundane but certainly useful goods from the north, such as leather, wool, wood, and iron ore. All of which were a prime temptation for the sort who liked wealth, especially other people's, and were not of a high enough social position to steal it politely.

“Can you see the road, Bobbie? I've lost it again!”

Roberta leaned over, trying to find a gap in the trees beneath them. The sun was low on the horizon behind them and it was getting difficult to tell where they were. She was disappointed to see nothing but an unbroken expanse of green. “No, it's hidden, I'm afraid. Perhaps we should set down for the night? We're losing daylight fast now. I can get Leofwine on the crystal, maybe, if we're not too far ahead of him, let him know we've seen nothing of note and are making camp for the night.”

Richard shrugged behind her. “Might as well. I'm getting a bit peckish, and maybe Tad Cooper can find a deer or boar or something to snack on.”

Roberta leaned around her husband to point downward. “There's something over on that rise there, a break in the trees.”

Richard shifted his weight, pressing his heels against the dragon, guiding it downward to land somewhat bumpily in the middle of what appeared to be another old ruin. “I suppose it shouldn't draw too much attention if we make a campfire?”

Roberta shook her head. “We haven't seen the bandits, but in this forest, it's difficult to say who might be nearby. All it would take is for one to climb a hill or up a tree and see the smoke. There's plenty enough of a moon tonight, I shouldn't want to risk it even after the sun sets. And it's not quite autumn yet, pup-pup, I'm certain we shan't freeze to death.”

Richard sighed and pulled their packs and the tent from Tad Cooper's back. “Oh, I suppose so.” He paused to look around in the last glow of the sunset at the stones around them before following Roberta further into the ruin. Everything was overgrown, weeds and shrubbery covering what clearly used to be a walled fortification of some sort not much different from the one they'd made their home in, although clearly the passage of time had not been nearly as kind here. They began setting camp at the highest point of it, the still-standing remnants of walls sheltering them from the wind and, hopefully, from prying eyes (although a dragon dropping out of he air is hardly ever subtle, it is also hardly ever an invitation).

It was smaller than even the glorified fort they called a castle back to the west, but Richard recognized the classic shape of a great hall. A gap in the stones indicated where a large door once stood, and the crumbled stairway lead down into a former courtyard where Tad Cooper was rolling in the weeds and scratching himself. Another mostly-crumbled wall enclosed the courtyard and probably what used to be the stables. Beyond, he suspected if he looked hard enough among the brush and small trees, he might find the foundations of homes and evidence of gardens, paddocks, and farmland. It was all very much like the home he'd left just that morning. “Who do you think lived here, Bobbie, what might've happened to them?”

Roberta had kept herself busy setting up their tent while Richard was running his hands over ancient pitted stone, lost in his thoughts. “Some lord's hall in the distant past, I suspect, from the shape of it. And who knows? War, drought, plague... could have been any number of things – oh, damn it!” The tent pole she'd been trying to tie down had slipped from her grasp and clattered to the ancient flagstones below. “Richard, do you mind helping me with this? I could really use another pair of hands, unless you want to sleep under the stars tonight.”

Richard flinched, returning to reality and rushing to Roberta's side. Eventually, they had the tent put together, their bed rolls set out side by side, and a bit of bread to munch on. The sound of crickets and night birds filtered through the tent canvas, and the occasional scuffle or snore from Tad Cooper outside, but it was otherwise a quiet and peaceful night. Richard pushed his bedroll flush against Roberta's and overlapped his blanket with hers, instantly feeling much warmer. Perhaps they wouldn't need that campfire, anyway.

* * *

Richard sat up, unsure what had roused him. Rubbing at his eyes, he noted that there was bright firelight around him. Roberta was gone. The tent was gone. Tad Cooper was nowhere to be seen nor heard. He was in a great hall, with a high vaulted ceiling, illuminated by numerous torches. Tapestries hung along the walls, each ivory-colored with three red roses in the center. Men in hauberks bearing the same image stood in groups conversing or milled about, paying no mind to him at all.

“Excuse me-” One of the men ambled passed him, deep in conversation with a companion, speaking in some language which felt like it ought to be familiar to him, although he was simultaneously certain he'd never heard it in his life. “Could you tell me where-” Another walked by, not looking at him at all, and indeed would have walked right into him if Richard had not stepped aside at the last moment. The peculiar thought occurred to Richard that they could not see him. He walked toward the head of the great hall, where an old and rather fat man was seated, laughing at a companion standing beside his chair and drinking from a large flagon of ale.

Richard turned as the massive doors at the end of the hall were pushed open and a man hurried inside. The newcomer was wearing bright silver armor and seemed scarcely able to catch his breath. Torchlight reflected from a winged helmet, making Richard's eyes water. He wore a hauberk of similar cut as the others, but it was black rather than ivory, and bore the image of a tree. The man pushed his way through the crowd, a piece of parchment clutched in his hand and calling out to the lord of this hall, seated at the other end. “Forlong!” The lord of the hall stood to greet this messenger. His face darkened as he read the parchment, the good humor of the gathering suddenly extinguished and the warmth of the hall suddenly retreating, leaving Richard feeling chilled to the bone.

“Richard!”

He turned around, looking for who was calling for him. The scene around him froze in place, the faces of the men now colorless and waxy, and the static torch flames throwing deep but unmoving shadows across hall. “Richard!” he heard again, and he rushed headlong down the length of the hall in between the statue-like figures, looking for the owner of the voice. “_Richard!_”

* * *

Richard sat up with a start, getting tangled in his blankets as his heart hammered in his chest. It was still pitch-black and he could see nothing. He felt Roberta's hand gripping his shoulder almost painfully.

“Oh thank heavens, I've been trying to wake you for at least ten minutes. You were having some sort of nightmare, I think, thrashing about like that.”

Richard gripped Roberta's hand where it lay on his shoulder, squeezing her fingers and trying to regain control over his breathing. He felt like he'd been running for real, not just in his imagination. The details of whatever he'd been dreaming were already fading away, in any case, and he flopped back down on the bedroll, dragging his hands over his face and trying to calm himself.

“Are you alright, Richard?”

“I'm fine, Bobbie. Just... as you said, a nightmare.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shrugged, although the gesture was useless in the dark. “I can't really remember it. I was... in a hall, somewhere, and there were... soldiers, I think? And a messenger. Then someone was calling for me, although that might have been you. I don't know, it was nothing, really.”

“A hall? Like the one we are camping in, perhaps?”

Richard was silent for a long moment, thinking. “...Yes actually. Quite a lot like this one, but with a roof and torches and tapestries. Tapestries with roses on them.”

“Roses? That's... a bit random. But then dreams don't always make sense. Not sure what's so terrifying about roses, though, you seemed quite disturbed.”

Richard scratched at his beard in the dark, trying to hold onto details that were rapidly evaporating from his waking mind. “Wasn't the roses that were frightening. The messenger brought bad news, I think, then everything sort of froze up and got super weird.”

“You wondered what happened to the people here earlier, perhaps your imagination was trying to fill in an answer? I suppose it is a bit sad to see ruins such as this, and know that it was a home for someone, once.” Roberta lay down again beside him and pulled the blanket up over him as she curled around him. “Well, I'm right here, Richard, if you should need me.”

“I always need you, Bobbie.” Richard nodded off again a few minutes later, sleeping fitfully through the remainder of the night.

* * *

The morning dawned to a grey drizzle and overcast skies. Darker banks of clouds to the north threatened heavier rain that would no doubt reach them soon. “I'm not sure it's a good idea to take Tad Cooper up today, Richard.” Rolling thunder in the distance seemed to lend its agreement. She turned to Richard, who was seated on a gap in the partially tumbled-down wall of the old keep, staring off into the trees. He already looked miserable, sulking under his oilskin cloak and haggard from a night of poor sleep on top of weeks of often equally poor or interrupted sleep, the drizzle collecting and dripping off the end of his beard. “Come back into the tent, pup-pup, we can wait out the storm. I doubt Leofwine and the rest will be doing any differently, and if they do happen to catch up with us, more's the better. The forest is proving too dense to see much from above, I'm afraid.”

After a moment's hesitation, Richard wordlessly slid off the remnants of the stone wall and trudged back to the tent, pushing his way inside, and Roberta followed him. Tad Cooper was still dozing in the remnants of a courtyard beyond, forever unbothered by weather or anything much else. _Oh, to be a dragon, _Roberta thought, _and have no cares but the next meal, and few enough about that_.

Safe inside the tent, Roberta tied down the tent flap against the rising wind, then helped Richard peel his cloak off and set it aside with her own. He was uncharacteristically silent and sullen, and as much as she'd like to attribute it simply to the foul weather (although that was part of it), she knew better. She sat down on her bedroll and pulled him back into their nest from the night before. With the change in weather, the temperature had cooled and with the dampness, and there was a definite chill, heralding the coming season. _When this is over,_ _we will lock ourselves in our rooms with no one else save Pearl for at least a fortnight and refuse all visitors. The servants can just collect and leave everything necessary outside the door_. Richard was already exhausted after months of successive problems and stubborn rulers, and this little excursion was shaping up to be no better. She pulled him close, hoping he might sleep a bit more.

“Bobbie, do you think any of this is really working? Every time we get one pissy monarch to put their army down, it seems like another is starting a war up all over again, or it's some petty problem that could be solved by an eight year old and yet apparently everyone thinks_ I_ should fix it! It's like it just never _ends_.”

“Nothing is solved in a day, pup-pup. It's been only two years since we started, and I know that feels like ages but it's really not. It took centuries for it to all fall apart, as I understand, or at the least, that is what my tutors told me when I was a child.” Roberta felt Richard reaching out to grasp at the hilt of the Hero Sword where it lay nearby inside the tent. To think that he'd pulled it from a stump for no more use than to chase off an overly friendly unicorn, and now he was more or less trying to herd cats with it – ill-tempered cats with armies and a penchant for ignoring collateral damage piling up in the streets of their countries' villages and filling their graveyards. In the end, the sword was just a sword and a symbol. It wasn't doing the work for them, certainly. _Blasted useless thing..._

* * *

It was a couple of hours before the thunder faded off to the east and the rain lightened. Richard had dozed off again and Roberta did not lament the lost time, as her husband seemed much more energetic for it.

“The trees are just too thick from the air,” Roberta remarked as she folded their little tent up and stowed it behind Tad Cooper's saddle.“We can go up again but if the bandits are holed up in this area, we aren't going to see them, unless they're stupid enough to set a campfire. I think we ought to use the crystal to tell Leofwine to send out scouts for this portion of the forest and head further east. I believe the mountains and river turn to the north up ahead. If they're hiding somewhere, I'd bet my money on the valley ahead.”

Richard hummed to himself and nodded, then turned to peer down the path ahead. He was more clear-eyed than before, if not much more talkative. Roberta thought back to their time with Galavant in his quest to save Isabella, how Richard had chattered away constantly, his mood nearly always buoyant despite the difficulties of their quest. He'd changed since then, growing more aware and thoughtful in bearing up the weight of the new crown he'd taken on for himself. Her little pup-pup wasn't gone, not yet anyway. She didn't know what she'd do if these blasted warring kingdoms turned him into a real cynic, but she suspected it might involve Tad Cooper's fire. Roberta walked over to him and gave his shoulder a quick squeeze, earning a brief half-smile from him, before rummaging about in her pack to find the crystal. “Leofwine?” It buzzed and fizzed at her and she shook it a few times, then climbed up into a tree to hold it aloft, hoping it would get through somehow. “Drat it! The trees must be in the way. We can go up on Tad Cooper for a minute, and see if this thing will work.”

Predictably, it did not work, even a mile up. Richard leaned over her shoulder where he was seated behind her, resting his chin on her shoulder and peering down at the uncooperative crystal in her hand. “They must be pretty deep into the woods by now, Bobbie. Let's just go on without them, I suppose. I mean, they're bound to turn up eventually, right? There's only one road, really. I'm sure Leofwine is alright.”

Roberta said nothing but shoved the crystal back into her bag, trying to repress the panic that wanted to take over her. Leofwine was surrounded by soldiers and was more than competent, and there really was no reason to worry, but he was also her friend and one of the few people from her childhood that she still had any contact with. Richard brought Tad Cooper back down and they plopped back into the ruins they'd camped in to continue on foot. They followed a slight depression in the forest floor that had been an actual road a long time ago. Occasionally Roberta could spy stones sticking up through the soil and weeds, which looked rather like well-worn cobblestones that had seen the passing of centuries of feet, hooves, and carts. Roberta tried not to think about what they'd do if they actually found the bandits and had no way of contacting the rest of their party. Tad Cooper, hopefully, would be enough of a deterrent on his own.

Roberta took the lead, using her sword to push brush aside when necessary, while Richard followed just behind her, humming to himself. Tad Cooper ambled along behind them, snuffling to himself and occasionally stopping to snap at something in the shrubbery. The dragon had a fondness for squirrels and rabbits, which Roberta found odd given that they were barely a mouthful for him. So much for stealth, anyway. She'd been trained in combat in her youth, but wood-craft was not one of her better skills. _Let's just get on with it._

* * *

They continued for three more days along the road with nothing much to break the monotony of travel. Roberta had found more sections of well worn, exposed cobblestone, proving her theory beyond a doubt, that this had once been a well-travelled, main road. This region clearly had some major history, lost to the mists of time though it was. They camped in yet more crumbling ruins as they scouted up and down minor rivers and creeks, looking for bandits near water. Even bandits had to drink, did they not? Of course, they could always fill their skins and then move on, just as she and Richard were doing. Roberta sighed, scratching at her neck where she was beginning to itch from sweat. The rain had passed and after a couple days the clouds had parted letting the sun through. It was cooler under the trees but the air felt thick and cloying. She wasn't sure she'd counted the days quite right but if it were not the first of September, then it was close enough to it. This far to the south, it remained warm well into autumn, but the rains became more frequent until one morning you woke and felt the slightest sting in your nose as the cooler air from the north finally pushed its way in. It was not quite at that point yet, though, and the biting insects and humidity were still very much a nuisance. The occasional dip in a creek was no substitute for a real bath, either, and while they'd both long gone nose-blind to each other's smell (and were both well overpowered by Tad Cooper's), she doubted a stranger would find them pleasant right now.

Even more annoyingly, they found no evidence of either bandit camps or of Leofwine's company. She'd been trying to hail him over the crystal multiple times a day without success. _Dammit, Edwin!_ Her opinion of the enchanter's skill had dropped several pegs. She prayed that Leofwine and the rest were simply hindered by their great numbers and heavy armor. Tad Cooper had no trouble pushing his way through brush (or simply tearing it out of the ground in his jaws, if it failed to move out of his way), but horses might not find it such a simple journey.

After several days of little conversation and a sullen sort of silence from him, Richard's voice startled her from behind. “You know, Roberta, someone ought to fix these roads. Maybe this realm would have a better relationship with its neighbors if its borders weren't so... inhospitable.”

Roberta paused, and shrugged. “Isn't that what we are doing? In part, at least. Clearing the bandits out should encourage traders, at least. Maybe once we've finished that, your army can work on clearing the brush off the roads.”

“That's not a bad idea, if they are willing. Some of these ruins might be useful, if we could find some masons willing to work for cheap to fix them up. This forest is, uh, nice, I suppose, but I think it must have been less overgrown in the past. People would have needed somewhere to plant things. Ooh, we could let some of those farmers come out here! They could build villages if they wanted. Plenty of wood, right?”

“Probably, if you could find anyone who wanted to live out in the arse-end of nowhere. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, hm? Bandits first, Richard.”

“Oh... alright.”

Richard lapsed back into silence as they trudged along, and Roberta felt a twinge of guilt at rebuking the first bit of real enthusiasm her husband had shown for anything that wasn't their daughter's antics or food in months. It reminded her of those weeks after the first farmers had begun tilling the fields around their little castle. Richard had been fascinated by the entire process, routinely riding around on the back of his mare just to watch the farmers or look at the crops. “_Those are carrots? They're underground? Really?_” At least he'd stopped asking how cakes were grown after she'd taken him to visit a miller, a beekeeper, and a baker. He'd been astounded by the most mundane things, it was all like magic to him. Life was magic to him. Or had been, anyway. _I'll make it up to you, pup-pup, once we get this over with._

* * *

You'd think a live dragon would make a bandit think twice, but apparently some bandits are either too stupid for words, or simply suicidal. They had rushed out of the trees to their left, three of them at first. The first had gone straight for Richard, a notched and somewhat rusty sword in one hand, and a rather keen dagger in the other. Before Roberta could even give thought to aiding him, the other two had come straight for her.

She dispatched one cleanly, dodging his thrust while catching him across the throat with her own sword. It was always a messy business, but they left little choice in the matter – they were clearly looking to kill, not simply rob. The second, she disarmed, then tripped, then knocked out cold with a blow to the back of the skull with the pommel of her sword.

_Good lord, they're even uglier than usual,_ she thought. Something about their faces seemed unnatural to Roberta, but she had little time to contemplate it. There was a great deal of screaming going on behind her and she turned swiftly to see Richard burying the Hero Sword into the gut of the third attacker with a pained look on his face. The source of the screaming, however, was not Richard, but rather a second pack of a half dozen men which had come out of the forest behind them, only to be greeted by Tad Cooper. The dragon was standing in the middle of a growing mound of gore as he tore them apart, shaking them like rats in the mouth of a terrier. _At least he hasn't set the forest on fire_.

Roberta turned away from the mess while Richard stumbled into the shrubbery beside the road to vomit. He'd grown less clumsy in battle as she'd trained with him (very, _very_ patiently) and Roberta no longer lived in terror of him dying on the end of a blade, but he'd never had much stomach for the sight of blood, and that had not changed one jot over the years, especially when confronted with Tad Cooper's excesses. “Richard?” A muffled reply came from behind a tree, followed by Richard stumbling back onto the road. “Are you alright, pup-pup?”

“Maybe?”

“You're not hurt, are you?”

He shifted from one foot to the other before thrusting his left arm out toward her without looking up, like a child caught doing something they'd been told not to. “That nasty bandit stabbed me, Bobbie!”

Lifting one eyebrow, Roberta went to him and grabbed his wrist, pulling his arm up to survey the damage. Blood was indeed soaking through his shirt from a spot just above the crease of the elbow joint, where there was a gap between the leather sleeve of his hauberk and the bracers he wore. Roberta unlaced the bracer, pulling it off, and rolled his sleeve up to get a closer look. “It's not deep, I'll wash it out and bind it for you.”

“It stings, Bobbie. Quite a lot, actually.” His eyes suddenly went wide. “Oh, no – you don't think it's _poisoned–_”

“They're bandits, pup-pup, not professional assassins. I rather doubt it. Let me clean this up and bandage it and we'll just keep an eye on it, hmm? I don't suppose you packed that bottle of whiskey that Galavant gave you that I told you was best left behind?”

Richard hesitated a moment, his cheeks turning slightly pink. “Er, uh, I think it might be in Tad Cooper's saddlebag?”

* * *

“You didn't have to pour out half the bottle over it! Could have at least let me have a sip of it, too....”

“Do you _want_ to die of gangrene?”

They had to be getting close, now. The road had turned to run more closely parallel to the main river, which she could hear rushing past just beyond a thin row of trees and down a steep bank. The bandits had a lair somewhere along this road, and she meant find it. The crystal still was not working, though, and it was getting near dusk.

On top of it all, Richard was dragging behind her. At first she'd chalked it up to fatigue and to sulking over the whiskey she hadn't let him drink and the minor cut he'd suffered, but as hours passed and they marched onward, she began to worry about him. They'd both done plenty of sweating in the heat of the day, but the sun had dipped below the treeline and she felt comfortable enough herself. Richard, however, was still sweating profusely and looked pale.

_Maybe that sword _ was _ poisoned._

Another crumbled archway lay ahead, heralding more ruins. If they could find a corner of a wall, it would shelter them from the wind tonight. They had another hour, perhaps, of usable light, but she didn't think Richard would go that long. “I think we should stop at the top of the hill there. We can set camp for the night.”

* * *

Richard burned from within and sweated and the world around him seemed to grow both too dim and too bright at once. Everything shifted and smeared at the edges and he could do nothing but put one foot in front of the other, following his wife's back, seemingly the only solid point left in the world. His arm ached something fierce, although his left hand had grown numb. Vague memories of fevers he'd suffered as a child floated somewhere in the back of his mind. He'd been perhaps six or seven the last time he'd felt so ill. He could almost hear his old nurse's voice, low and soothing as she'd rubbed him down with cloths soaked in cool water and changed his sweaty nightclothes with fresh ones every few hours. When the chills came, she had pulled him close under a heavy sheepskin, and let him suckle from her breast until he slept. _You turned nine and they sent Pearl away, said you were too old for a nurse. They made her leave and she cried. You cried and Gareth said shut up you big baby. They said Pearl died._ _No, she's with Audrey. No, that's little Pearl. Old Pearl...little Pearl... oh, there's Bobbie. Gosh, she got taller... Where am I? Why is everything so _confusing_? I want to go home..._

Insects buzzed from the trees and he followed Bobbie, stumbling from time to time. She'd pause and look back, and pull him to his feet when he could not prevent himself from falling entirely, finally pulling his good arm across her shoulders and letting him lean on her a bit. _Good ol' Bobbie. I like Bobbie. At least Bobbie doesn't laugh at me_. His mother's voice, dismissive and mocking, chided him from somewhere hidden for being so clumsy and useless and Not Kingsley. Gareth's face, young but as stern as ever, shook at him from behind the trees, rolling his eyes. Bobbie. Bobbie was there too. She, at least, was gentle, although something in her expression right now frightened him. Past and present ran together as they moved onward. Bobbie said something about a hill, but Richard didn't understand her.

* * *

Roberta ended up having to put up the tent and set out their bed rolls more or less on her own. Richard had thrown up again once they'd made it to the top of the hill, and was definitely feeling very poorly. His eyes were still clear but he was pale, sweaty, and shaky, and seemed not to know where they were. She put him to bed and took Tad Cooper up to try and see if she could catch sight of Leofwine's company (which she still could not get on that useless blasted enchanter's crystal), but there was nothing to be seen except the forest, the river, and in the distance, the mountains curving away to the west and to the north. Even on a dragon's back, it would take several days to get back to the castle, and she didn't trust Richard to be able to keep his seat in the saddle well enough. If he fell, the poison would be the least of his problems.

Returning to their little camp in the ruins of what looked like an old river port outpost, she left Tad Cooper to stand guard and roused Richard enough to get him to drink some water. They'd need to find a clear spring soon. She could build a fire and boil river water if necessary, but after their run-in with the small band of highwaymen earlier, she was leery of giving away their position. If Richard could not move in the morning, she was unsure what she would do.

_If he dies_, she thought,_ I'll beat that beardless boy of a king to the south black and blue myself._ Chocolate weapons! A toy army! After that battle with Madalena, he still refused to take responsibility for his own kingdom. Bloody idiot deserves to be overrun.

* * *

Richard stirred slightly. He still felt feverish, but less worried. Cracking his eyes open, he was laying upon a bed in a large room. There were others around him, some wounded and bandaged, others simply unconscious. A tall man with dark hair and kind but weary grey eyes was nearby. Something about him felt familiar, although Richard could not recall ever having seen him. The man bent over a blonde-haired woman nearby, and a young man in turn, though neither stirred in their beds. He exchanged words with an elderly woman, although Richard could not understand their speech. She left and the man issued instruction to other nurses (for that was what they seemed to be, at least), who stoked a fire and set water to boil. Time seemed to pass and the figures in the room moved to and fro, and spoke in that strange tongue, although Richard could not say how long it had been. Finally, a boy rushed in, bringing a bundle of some herb. As he handed it to the man, Richard saw familiar long pointed leaves, though dried, and a sweet scent filled the room as the man crushed them in his hand and cast them into the steaming bowls of water. He bent over the young man and spoke again and the words, though foreign, took shape in Richard's mind. _“Walk no more in the shadows, but awake!”_

Richard was overtaken by the return of his weariness and his eyes shut as the sounds and smells of the room faded away. More words chased him back into the darkness. _The hands of the king are the hands of a healer._


	3. Chapter 3

Richard returned to consciousness slowly as Roberta mopped at his brow with a strip of cloth. He spoke, and was surprised at how weakly his own voice came. “Bobbie?”

“I'm here, Richard. I'm sorry, pup-pup, but you were right – that sword was poisoned. I can't get Leofwine on the crystal. I sent Tad Cooper back toward the castle with a note tied to his saddle to send a healer, but it will be at least four days for him to get there and return again to here. And that's only if he allows someone else to take the note and to ride back... I told Tad Cooper it was important but you know he only listens to you...”

Roberta set the cloth aside and lifted Richard's head and shoulders into her lap, and brought a waterskin to his lips. He managed to drink a little, but nausea threatened to bring it back up, and he turned aside. Mid-morning light filtered into the tent, where the flap had been tied back at both ends to allow air through. Richard turned his head. Growing from a gap in the stones nearby was a clump of some plant. He tried to move his arm but could not lift it to point. “Athelas...”

Bobbie leaned over him, trying to hear what he was saying. “Athe-what? Richard?”

Growing frustrated with his own weakness, Richard grit his teeth and tried, again, to shift his arm. The left was dead useless, but he managed to cross the right over his chest and roll to point at the plant nearby, with its long, shiny leaves. “There, Bobbie.”

Roberta leaned down to look out through the open tent flap, squinting in the bright sunshine. “It's just a weed, Richard. It's growing all over this ruin.”

Richard rolled hard, dislodging himself from Roberta's hold entirely, stretching his right arm toward the plant again. Frustrated tears fell as he failed to grasp hold of it.

“Richard! Oh lord, you're delirious...” She pulled him back into the tent and he cried out, now sobbing in earnest like a small child denied a sweet while Roberta tried not to panic. Roberta huffed, trying not to take it personally. Richard's fever was no worse than the day before, but it was certainly no better, and there was a yellow tinge to the whites of his eyes that did not bode well for his future. “Fine, if you want it so badly, I'll bring it to you! Stay here, _please_, before you hurt yourself.”

Roberta stepped out of the tent and ripped up the weed, yanking it up roots and all, swearing under her breath. She paused momentarily, taking in the scent of it, which reminded her of fresh grass in early spring. She pressed a leaf between her fingers and the scent grew stronger. “Huh.” She ducked back into the tent to find that Richard had fallen asleep again. “Well, you wanted this, pup-pup, but what am I supposed to _do_ with it?” Shrugging, she took the wooden bowl she'd been using to mop cool water over him and left the tent with it. She tipped the river water out onto the stones and wiped it out with a rag, then gave it a rinse with clean water, using more to fill it up. “I hope you're not just hallucinating, Richard, because if this doesn't work, I've just wasted half of what's left of our clean water.” She tore up some of the leaves and rolled them between her hands before dropping them into the water, and set the bowl in a sunny spot to warm up. “Bit like making tea, I suppose.”

Cautiously, she pulled another leaf from the weed and chewed at it. It wasn't bitter, as she'd assumed. The taste was almost nothing at all, although the scent was even stronger, filling her sinuses with a cool sensation, somewhat like mint. “If this is poisonous as well, I suppose that will make the two of us a matched pair.” Roberta sat down on a stone just outside the tent, keeping one eye on Richard and another on the bowl. She pulled a bit of the remaining dried mutton from her pack to chew on and waited. If it passed mid-day without her vomiting or turning yellow or breaking out in purple spots, she'd give Richard some of the “tea” of this weed he'd fixated on. If nothing else, the scent was quite soothing...

* * *

Roberta awoke with a start as she slid off the rock she was perched on and nearly hit the stones below face-first. Luckily, she was able to grab onto a small tree growing from a crack nearby and hoist herself back upright. “Must've dozed off...” Blinking and looking around, it was well past mid-day, though not quite evening yet. The bowl of water had turned a cheerful yellow-green color. She picked it up, giving it another sniff and, taking stock of her own physical condition, decided the plant was at least harmless. She fished the leaves out of the water and discarded them and took the bowl back into the tent.

Richard was much the same as he'd been earlier. She almost hated to wake him, but if there was any chance this concoction would do him some good, she was willing to try it. “Where did you learn about herb-lore, anyway?” She had no recollection of him knowing anything about healing in the past. She'd had to explain to him once that beer was made from grain, not grapes. His parents had clearly given little thought to his education beyond the most basic literacy and arithmetic. He knew a few bits of trivia about his family tree and kingdom's history, but the rest of the world was still one new wonder after the next for him.

Setting the bowl down, she shifted him back into her lap. The movement failed to wake him and her brow creased in concern. He was still breathing, at least. She gave him a slight shake. “Richard, I need you to wake up for a moment.” Richard stiffened slightly and mumbled something under his breath that she didn't quite catch, something about hands and a king. “Yes, your hand is paralyzed from the poison. That's why I need you to sit up a moment and drink this.” Roberta gave him another slight shake, and his eyes opened very slightly. He wasn't lucid, by any stretch, but she decided to give it a try and brought the bowl to his lips. To her relief, he drank it without protest. He seemed to revive slightly before he'd even finished it. Roberta settled him back into his blankets and waited. She hoped it wasn't just her imagination and being optimistic, but he seemed to be sleeping more naturally now, and less like a man on the edge of death.

* * *

The next morning dawned cloudy again, although it was not raining at least. Richard woke first, rolling up to sit in the dark and regretting it instantly. He tried to remember the last time he had a headache as intense as this but came up with nothing. He stumbled out of the tent and was grateful for the cool wind whipping up with the oncoming rain over his heated face. “Ugh.”

Staring at his surroundings, he scratched at his scalp and tried to remember where the hell they were and how they'd gotten there. The last couple days began coming back to him in bits and pieces. He remembered getting a nick to his arm just inside his elbow and he flexed his left hand a few times to test it. There was a stiffness there, but nothing too bad. Peeling back his sleeve, the cut was scabbed over and seemed to be healing cleanly. “Hmm.” Who had healed him, though? He remembered a clean bed in a hall with high ceilings and many people. He could see in his mind's eye the face of tall man with dark hair. Where they were now, however, bore no resemblance whatever to that hall, and there was no one but himself and Roberta, who now emerged, groggy and yawning, from the tent behind him. Looking around again, Richard grew somewhat panicked when he noticed, finally, one glaring absence.

“Bobbie, where is Tad Cooper?”

“I sent him with a note back to the castle for a healer. He won't return before another two days at the very least, I'm afraid.” Roberta looked him up and down, taking his face between her hands to tilt his head downward. “Your eyes look better, at least. And you're certainly feeling better.”

“Yes, that man gave me something... an herb of some sort.”

“What man? Richard, there's been no one here but you and me. You did take interest in some kind of weed, though. I took a gamble and gave it to you. I don't know what it is but it seems to have done the trick, at least.”

“A weed?”

Roberta nodded and ducked back into the tent, bringing the wilted remnants of the herb she'd used the day before, passing them to Richard. He took the bundle and stared at it as though it had slapped him. He remembered a voice that seemed to go with the face, and repeated the words under his breath, trying to fix them into his waking memory. “Walk no more in the shadows... the hands of the king are the hands of a healer...”

“What is that, Richard? You know, you never told me you knew anything of healing herbs. We always sent for that enchanter when Pearl was ill, but I think this plant of yours must be of more use than any of his leeches. Things did not look good for you before...”

Richard squeezed the withered leaves, taking in the scent, which reminded him of the apple trees that once grew in the courtyard of his parents' castle. “Hm? Oh, I don't know anything at all about herbs. I know some of them are used by the cook, that's all.”

“Richard, you could barely move yesterday and yet you nearly crawled out of the tent to get to that weed. I know I've seen it before, out in the fields near the castle. The swineherds feed it to their pigs sometimes, but I've never seen anyone else take notice of it. How did you know it would help you?”

Richard blinked owlishly, trying to piece together some rather contradictory fragments in his head. “I was in some sort of large hall yesterday, made of white stone, and there were beds and people all around. A man used this on two others who were also taken ill. He called it athelas, I think...”

Roberta pinched at the bridge of her nose, trying not to snap at her husband. He'd been delirious with fever and clearly had hallucinated something. “We've been nowhere but the road, Richard, and then this ruin to camp. You were dreaming, that's all.”

“The hands of the king...”

Roberta reached out to take hold of Richard's left hand, giving it a squeeze, which he returned out of habit. “Your hand seems fine, now. I don't think the poison will have any lasting effect. You were lucky, Richard. We must be more careful from now on, especially without Tad Cooper. If we run into more of those bandits, we mustn't be cut by their blades. I'll look for more of this... well if you want to call it 'athelas' I suppose that's as good a name as any, although I've never heard it called anything but a weed.”

Richard shook his head, still lost in his own thoughts. “I don't think he was talking about me, Bobbie. I'm no healer. I'm not even that much of a king, really. No, I think he must be the king in these parts. He was the one tending to the other two... his hands, not mine...”

Roberta sighed. He wasn't going to let it go, obviously. “Technically, Richard, these lands are part of _your_ kingdom. Those democracy buffs have no interest in it, so it's absolutely yours, empty as it is. Given that nobody has lived here in I suspect many centuries, other than these thrice-damned bandits, you are the only king 'these parts' have at the moment. And you did find that weed. You had a _dream_, Richard. That's all. No one else has been here, and you haven't been anywhere else in the last two days.”

Richard looked at her, his expression almost pleading somehow. Roberta drew him into an embrace, then pulled him into a brief kiss. “Richard, I'm not mocking you, I promise. I don't know where these vivid dreams you've had of late have come from, but they are just _dreams_. These bandits are far more dangerous and better organized than I'd anticipated and we need to keep our wits about us.”

Richard squeezed her and leaned his forehead against her hair. “I know, Bobbie. And as much as I hate to go on without him, we can be quieter without Tad Cooper. He's a smart boy, he'll come and find us when he returns.”

* * *

Leofwine turned the map around again, trying to line it up with the mountains he could see in the distance. There were only so many directions that the King and Queen could have gone, given that they were more or less hemmed in between a river and the steep mountains.

“I don't think they'd have crossed the river, Sir, it's nothing but scrub and desert to the south, and more mountains to the east.”

“I know that, Gunther, but I can't reach them and I don't like it. I knew letting them go ahead on that dragon was a mistake, you can't see anything through these blasted trees...” Leofwine rolled the map up again, shoving it back into the saddlebag of his squire's horse. They were following the track of an old road of some sort heading eastward, but an army could only march so quickly – certainly not at the pace of a dragon on the wing. He turned back to the small clearing where they'd been camping, shouting at his second in command. “Alfred, have any of the scouts returned?”

The younger knight stood up abruptly from where he'd been seated on a stump, drinking something from a flask that Leofwine suspected wasn't water. He'd have to have words with Alfred about that later. Alfred trotted over to him. “Mildred returned this morning, sir. There was a small cave up to the north that had a few supplies in it, but everything was pretty dusty. Didn't look like anyone had been there in some time.”

“Supplies? Anything useful?”

“Some deer hides, weapons, a few empty water skins... She took a couple of squires back up there to get everything, should be back by dusk, sir.”

“Well, that's something, I suppose.”

“Any luck with the crystal...?” Alfred leaned back at the darkening of Leofwine's expression.

“No, Alfred, I think the trees must be blocking it. I'll let you know if anything changes. In the meantime, we follow our original orders.”

Leofwine startled and drew his sword as a young woman burst out of the trees, but re-sheathed it immediately when he saw it was one of the squires that had been sent out to the south the day before.

“Sir, I saw Tad Cooper just earlier, when I climbed up one of the trees, he was flying overhead, and turned a corkscrew a time or two – there was no one on his back!”

Leofwine nodded at the squire, then gave a sharp whistle to get the camp's attention. “Pack up, everyone! As soon as the last of the scouts return, we are pushing forward along the road with haste. Something's happened with the King and Queen to separate them from that bloody great pet of theirs, and I intend to find out what it is!”

* * *

Roberta and Richard took to walking just off the pathway, trying to stay out of plain sight. The trees were taller here, with massive trunks and dense canopy that blocked all but the thinnest, green-tinted sunlight. The upshot was that in the dimmer light, the undergrowth was not quite so dense, at least, and their path was easier. Roberta let her fingers trail across the lichen-covered bark. “Some of these trees must be three or four hundred years old, I should think.”

Richard paused to look about. “Really? Can trees live that long?”

“Longer, by far. Thousands of years, in some cases.” Roberta stopped to investigate a mark that had been carved into one trunk. The symbol was meaningless to her, but the cuts were fairly fresh. There was more evidence of the passage of other people as they pressed on. They ran across the remains of a campfire that, while cold, could not have been there long, given the recent rain they'd had. Even under this dense foliage, it would have washed away, eventually. “I think we must be on the right path, Richard. These bandits must have a stronghold somewhere nearby, and send out groups to wait for travellers along the road.”

Richard scowled, shoving his hands into his pockets. “This much unused land, and they can't find some other way to make a living? You think they could sell timber, or clear a patch and make a farm, or _something_.”

Roberta shrugged. “Some people enjoy cruelty, I suppose. If they spent half as much effort doing something constructive as they did on finding ways to take from others, they'd have no problem filling their bellies.”

Richard stopped behind Roberta, who turned at the cease of his footfalls. “What's wrong, Richard?”

Richard seemed to shrink in himself. “Nothing, Bobbie, I just... I used to be like that, I think.”

Roberta looked at her husband for a long moment, unable to deny what he said. She knew he'd been far from benevolent at times during his initial rule. During his first eight years on the throne, he'd been a puppet of his mother, but after her death, he'd continued in her heavy-handed ways, especially once Madalena entered the picture with her ceaseless demands for yet more wealth and treasure, culminating in their disastrous invasion of Valencia over that stupid green rock the upstart queen had coveted. Roberta, to this day, blamed Gareth's constant goading, criticism and generally shit advice, at least in part, but she could not shift the blame from Richard entirely. He could have told them all to piss off, but he'd been more interested in gaining his cold-blooded mother's love and Gareth's approval, than he'd been in the wellbeing of his kingdom's people. “Well... you aren't like that anymore, Richard. That you changed does count for something. Quite a lot, actually, in my opinion.”

“Maybe. I don't know why I even did it to begin with. I wanted to be a good king, I just... I don't know. Everyone always wanted something from me, I think I began to resent it. And Gareth-”

Roberta huffed, cutting him off. “Gareth. Yes. _Definitely _Gareth. He was always a bad influence on you, I think.”

Richard scowled, and pulled his hands from his pockets to cross his arms over his chest, defensively. “Gareth just wanted to protect me, Bobbie. Okay, maybe he didn't always go about it in the best way, but I didn't _have_ to do what he told me. I just... did. A lot of the nobles thought I was stupid and naive, and I_ was_ stupid and naive, and like I said, they always wanted something... and the peasants, I suppose, just wanted to not starve or be slaughtered, but I somehow I didn't see the difference at the time. I just wanted to play games I think. Mother sent everyone away. Pearl first, then the other children. Including you...”

Roberta slumped against a tree trunk. “You weren't stupid, Richard, you were a child. Naive maybe, but what ten year old isn't? I suppose Gareth was as well, in different ways. You both developed terrible habits because nobody cared enough to teach you otherwise, and it all just went downhill from there as far as I can tell. But at least you turned around, in the end. After the past two years, I can't say you were any worse than the rest of these jackals we've been dealing with still are. Selfishness seems to be the common disease among the ruling classes. They all want to treat people like possessions. Not all that much different than these bandits, other than the wardrobe and cuisine, I suppose... ”

Roberta stood again and picked at her sleeve. Her own parents had been nobles as well, if of a lesser variety. They hadn't been especially selfish or cruel, compared to most, but they'd been a bit condescending toward the peasantry in a blind, unthinking sort of way, and so had she, in her youth, giving little thought to the servants in her family household or the serfs who farmed their ancestral lands. They'd just been there, and they'd always been there, and it was just the way the world worked. As she'd grown up and gone to war, and seen the suffering around her, something had shifted in her mind. She wasn't arrogant enough to think she could re-order the whole of society, but a bit of consciousness of others' lives and a bit of kindness was warranted, she thought. “You can't change the past, pup-pup. You can always try to do better tomorrow, though.”

Richard gave Roberta a lukewarm smile. “You're right as always, Bobbie. I just never seem to know if I'm doing things right, anymore. Maybe I never did.”

“Richard, nobody _really_ knows what they're doing. It's not like any of us are born with a book of instructions. You just do the best you can with what you have. The rest is just... destiny, or chance, or something, I guess.”

Richard scratched at his beard a bit and fidgeted with the hilt of the Hero Sword. “I do wonder what Gareth is up to these days. I haven't heard from him since he left three years ago.”

“He went after Madalena. Maybe he found her.”

Richard frowned, an old worry creasing his brow. “Do you think he's okay?”

“I don't know Richard. He's tough as old boots, I can say that much. I don't know if Madalena would listen to him, but if anyone has a chance of getting through to her, it's Gareth. She might listen to him.”

Richard sighed, not feeling much comforted, but there wasn't anything else to say. He'd periodically sent scouts out to seek word of either Gareth or Madalena for a while now, but nobody had heard anything of either of them since they left, and nobody was even much certain what direction they'd gone. Sid had not returned, either, and Richard knew Galavant had to be worried about his former squire, too. He turned and continued on in the direction they'd been headed, and Roberta followed.

* * *

Richard shrugged where he stood beside his wife. “Well, if I were a bandit, I think that's where I'd be hiding.”

Roberta and Richard stood atop a massive wall. They'd come upon it abruptly, a sudden barrier cutting the forest in half. They'd followed it until they found an old stairway leading up to the top. Some parts of the wall were remarkably intact, although much of it looked less than stable. It did not clear the treetops entirely, but it gave them enough height to see a bit more of the horizon. Beyond the forest, the line of mountains to the west and the river to the east had both turned parallel to a north-south direction, and in the distance something jutted out of the mountains like the prow of a massive ship. It was no mere hill – whatever it was, it had been built with purpose. It was in layered tiers, like an elaborate cake, but with a long wedge-like section cutting through the middle. It was difficult to judge the scale of it from this distance, but it must be the size of a city, Roberta thought.

“If we keep the mountains to our left, we could perhaps reach it on foot today, if the weather holds out. The trees aren't so tall here, but the underbrush is thickening up again.” Roberta paused to look at the skies above them, searching for the outline of a dragon. Tad Cooper should have had ample time to reach their castle and turn around to come back. Richard insisted that the animal understood speech, but Roberta had her doubts, now more than ever. They'd have to press on without him, it seemed.

* * *

Leofwine poked at the offensively smelling pile with the end of a stick. “Definitely dragon dung, a few days old at most... still damp in the middle. They were here, at least, no more than three or four days ago. They must have stopped for a while.”

Gunther milled around, not particularly listening to the old knight. He pulled something from behind a rock and lifted it up. “Sir? I found something!”

The squire handed over a strip of cloth with a rusty colored stain. Leofwine lifted it, giving it a deep sniff. Blood, definitely, although not a great deal of it. “One of them was injured, but not fatally. They must have stopped here to tend to it. I suppose it must have happened during that scuffle back down the road... that dragon certainly left enough of a mess. The three he didn't tear apart had a rather unsavory look, I think. Bestial, almost..” Leofwine shivered, the heavy features and large teeth of the dead bandits spoke to something strange, if not unnatural. He'd heard tales of cruel creatures, beast-like but in the form of men, who had once terrorized the seven kingdoms in the distant past, of great wars that had been fought to beat them back, along with other nightmarish monsters. Fairy tales, he'd thought, the sort of things you told children to make them behave. _If you don't eat your vegetables, the goblins will get you! Clean your room, or the giant spiders will take you away in their webs!_

Another minute of milling about the former campsite, and Gunther returned again with a dried plant that looked like it had been uprooted and some leaves plucked off. “What d'you think they were doing with this, sir?”

Leofwine took it and gave it a sniff as well. “Just a weed, squire. Kingsfoil, I think it's called. Usually fed to pigs. As for what they were doing, who knows? The King – may he long reign – does rather fidget at times, he might simply have pulled it apart for no reason at all. The scent is pleasing, so maybe he was trying to cover up the stench of the dragon dung. Yes, they were definitely camped here. I wonder why they stayed so long? A small cut as this paltry bandage would bind should not have caused much hurt.” King Richard had matured greatly over the last few years, but he could still be a bit dramatic at times, Leofwine knew. But even he would not go into hysterics over so small a nick that they'd have to remain for at least two days (as the multiple piles of dragon dung in varying degrees of dryness attested to), and they'd clearly packed up and moved on since, which would not have been possible if either of them had been seriously wounded. Another piece to a growing mystery. “Let's keep going, we still have a few hours of daylight and we're clearly moving in the right direction.”

* * *

The city – for now Roberta was absolutely convinced it had, at some point in the distant past, been home to a multitude of people, if its immense size spoke to anything – looked remarkably intact, at least from this vantage point. There was evidence that portions of the walls had been repaired at some point, as the stone was of a slightly differing shade, but everything about it was simply _massive_. She could not imagine how it could have been wrought by the hands of men. She'd known stonemasons and while they could shift some hefty blocks using winches and rolling logs other such tools, some of the black stones of the outer wall of this city were the size of entire buildings themselves.

They'd been following this outer wall from where it had met the roots of the mountain it was set into, along a wide curve that seemed to go forever. The trees came nearly right up to it, and vines trailed up its surface. There had been depressions in part of the forest they'd travelled through that suggested the outlines of buildings, of tilled fields, and something in Roberta ached for the mystery of it, of a long-gone and forgotten past. This part of the kingdom was mostly ignored, and had been for uncounted generations. Who were these people? Where had they gone?

Richard, for his part, seemed almost giddy with the discovery. “An entire city! Carved right out of a mountain! Why has nobody ever told me this was here?”

Roberta broke into a run to catch up to her husband, who had bounded ahead of her, dashing off like a child rushing to the toymaker's stall in the market. “Nobody ever comes out here, that's why. Other than bandits, obviously. Did your parents even know it existed?”

“Well, if they did, they might have told Kingsley, but they never told _me_ anything about it.” Richard ran ahead again, disappearing around the broad curve of the stone, before rushing back to her. “Bobbie! Come look at this!”

The gates of the abandoned city were a sight to behold. They must have been as ancient as every other crumbling, forgotten ruin in this region, but they shone in the sunlight like untarnished silver, which was almost absurd to even consider given the likely age of them. Roberta couldn't imagine bandits bothering to polish them. Loot the gemstones and silver off of them, if they could find ladders high enough to reach the former, perhaps, but not _cleaning_ them. Figures of men – of kings, judging by the crowns – decorated the massive doors, with gems of many colors set into them. They towered upward, nearly half as high as the massive wall itself. Simply moving them at all must have required the work of many men, or perhaps oxen. As it was, they stood open only by a crack, just enough room for perhaps three men abreast to walk through. Richard rushed ahead, but Roberta grabbed him by the arm, halting his enthusiasm. “Careful, Richard! As you said earlier, if you were a bandit, this is where you'd hide, and it's certainly a large enough place to hide a great many of them. Let's wait til nightfall to go further, hmm?”

“Oh alright. Why do the crowns have wings on them, I wonder?”

“What?”

“The figures on these gates.”

“I don't know. Perhaps these people were fond of birds. We can wonder about it later, when we're not standing somewhere so... obvious.”

* * *

They spent the rest of the day dozing between several trees growing in a slight depression, providing some measure of concealment and rose as the sky turned crimson beyond the mountains to the west. A full moon would rise soon enough to the east, and Roberta hurried Richard along, wanting to slip into the city in the darkness between sunset and moonrise. Beyond all other concerns, their provisions were wearing thin, now, especially the water, as Roberta had taken only what they could carry individually from Tad Cooper's back. Roberta hoped that the ancient city had wells that had somehow survived unfouled over the centuries, but they'd have to ensure they would not be walking into an ambush to get it.

Her timing proved fortuitous, and they slipped through the gates quietly, walking into a vast courtyard beyond. The moonlight soon followed them, lighting up the walls and buildings of the city, all carved from white stone that reflected it back and forth, giving the streets a surprising brightness in the middle of the night. She pulled Richard to a halt as she crouched behind an old stone stables just to the left of the main gates, whispering to him. “We'll need to be careful, the moonlight lets us see, but it will also let us be seen.”

She felt Richard nod to her where he leaned against her. She paused, holding her breath and trying to stretch the limits of her hearing. Nothing stirred around them, even the wind had fallen to almost nothing as the rain had come and gone swiftly much earlier in the day. The clouds had pushed on to the east and left a clear, moon-bright sky behind them. She knew they needed to move, but hesitated, not knowing what their next step ought to be. _I wish we had stayed with Leofwine._

Growing impatient, Richard stood up and edged around the stables to peer along the courtyard until it disappeared around the curve of the city. Looking up, each successive tier was a smaller half-circle set into the mountainside. “There's got to be a stair somewhere... left or right, do you think?”

Roberta sighed and stood as well, following him. “No clue, but we have to go some way first. Left, maybe? I don't suppose it matters. The bandits might not even be in here. Who knows, maybe it's haunted.” Richard cringed at her flippant gallows-humor. She stifled her laughter at his expense but gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. “Maybe all the statues scared them off. Certainly enough of them here... these people must have been fond of stonecarvers to pay them for all of these honking great monuments.”

Richard shrugged, looking up at the almost inconceivable expanse of the place. “Maybe they just had very rich and very vain kings. I suppose it's a good thing I never saw any of this as a child, it simply never occurred to me to have a statue the size of a small mountain carved in my likeness. Madalena would definitely have wanted one if she'd seen them. Two, even.”

Roberta took Richard's hand into her own and crossed the courtyard, turning to the left, as she'd arbitrarily chosen. They passed beneath a large archway. Reddish staining around it spoke to an iron gate that had long ago rusted away, probably some means of sectioning off portions of the city in the event of a siege. Whoever had designed this city had meant it to last, clearly, which made its emptiness all the more puzzling. There were fewer giant stone kings beyond, and far more smaller constructions. Shops, dwellings, probably a few pubs from the shape of them, an old forge, long grown cold and even the ashes carried away by the passage of time... Old stone planters still had soil in them, and grew now an abundance of weeds rather than flowers, some with vines trailing out of them. They came upon a well, finally, and Roberta could only curse at her lack of foresight in leaving their only bit of rope behind on Tad Cooper's saddle. _Of course any that was once here would have rotted away_. If there were bandits hiding in here, they weren't using this particular well, that was certain. She left the well and they pushed onward.

* * *

They'd found not a stair, but a massive ramp ascending to the next tier and, after going through a tunnel cutting through the “ship's prow” structure in the center of the city, yet another ramp on the far side. The entire city was a winding path which led upward, each ramp on the opposite side of the last, and between all of them were more archways that had once had iron gates. Any invaders would've needed to be very determined indeed to lay siege to this place. They'd also found no evidence any recent habitation. There were a few birds' nests and other corners were animals had taken up residence, but despite sticking their heads through numerous doorways (the wooden doors themselves long gone) and wandering through old buildings of various types, they'd found nothing but empty rooms. Whatever had been in this city of any worth had been looted long ago, stripping it bare of everything but the stone itself.

Richard was growing more agitated as they continued. He kept stopping and looking to the side, or behind him. Eventually, Roberta ran straight into his back as they exited yet another empty, abandoned dwelling. “Pup-pup, I don't think anyone else is here, unless they were around the right branch of the first level that we did not explore. But I've heard nothing and seen nothing.”

“Hmm.” Richard pulled at his beard and chewed his lip nervously. He felt like he was being watched, and he kept seeing movement out of the side of his vision, or hearing the barest whisper of something moving. “Maybe my imagination is getting the best of me, Bobbie, but I feel like we are very much _not_ alone.”

“We can turn back if you want. Go back down to the first level. If they're anywhere, it's likely to be down there. I can't imagine them coming all this way up. It would be... inconvenient, to say the least.”

Richard shook his head. He was frightened to continue upward in some non-specific way, but some other impulse drove him forward. Something about this city tugged at the edge of his mind, like he should know it, like some nearly forgotten childhood memory that just needed a bit more of a push to come forth. The white stone was reminiscent of those in the dreams he'd had on this journey, and he couldn't help but feel there was some connection. “I want to see the top, Bobbie, we've come this far. We can at least get a view of whatever is beyond the forest from up there, it's well over the trees. Once the sun is up, at any rate. Maybe that stupid crystal will start working and we can get Leofwine... or maybe Tad Cooper will see us. I hope Tad Cooper sees us. I miss Tad Cooper.”

Roberta hesitated for a moment, but respected Richard's decision. He was definitely rattled by something, and Roberta knew he wasn't saying everything he was thinking. A few years ago, though, he probably would have retreated at the first obstacle. A few years before that, he would have hidden behind Gareth. She smiled, motioning for him to lead on, and let him set the pace as they continued their path upward.

* * *

Leofwine's company stumbled upon a camp of about eighty or so bandits entirely by accident, more of the same ugly sort. They'd crossed through an opening in a massive, ancient wall a couple days earlier, and had followed it toward the east and then as it curved north. The bandits had constructed their camp inside and around what had once been a garrison surrounding another gate in the wall, opening to a road toward the river to the east beyond.

The battle was swift and decisive. With their heavier armor and superior weapons, they'd managed to disable or dispatch most of the bandits within minutes. Mounted soldiers had been sent after those who'd fled. Before leaving, the Queen had instructed him to take the bandits alive, if possible, although if a few had perished in the skirmish, Leofwine wasn't inclined to loose much sleep over it. Too many had died on their blades in recent years, and Leofwine was ever more convinced there was something deeply unnatural about them. They were all ugly down to the last one, and many of them had uneven features, their bodies and faces highly unsymmetrical. Leofwine had known people who had been born with a withered arm or missing foot, or some other fault in their appearance, and while it had seemed an unfortunate happenstance in those cases, it had never been like this, like some deliberate corruption of nature, if not outright spiteful mockery. King Harry had only recently complained of these bandits but Leofwine thought they could hardly be a new problem, as well-armed and organized as they were. He didn't believe for a minute that they'd gotten all of them, either – more were most likely stationed up and down the roads throughout the region, waiting to waylay the merchant caravans that travelled between their kingdom and Hortensia to the south. They'd have to travel the length to find more of them. Leofwine walked to the gate, looking out at the road beyond. It led east, and in the distance, he could see white stone reflecting in the moonlight along the river. Another sizable ruin, then, for the bandits to hole up in. _I should have brought more soldiers_, he thought. _Too late now._

Gunther trotted up to him. “What shall we do with them sir? There's sixty eight still alive, although some of them may not still be so come morning.”

Leofwine mulled over the question. The Queen had not specified what was to be done with them afterward. He pulled the crystal out of his bag and gave it one more try, and was completely unsurprised when nothing happened. “Tie them up on horseback and send half the soldiers with them to the south. There's an outpost about five miles beyond the river where Hortensia's territory begins. Have them follow the coast, they'll see it. Leave them with the men there along with a message to Prince Harry that they are a gift of the King and Queen for them to do with as they please. After all, it's mostly been their citizens who have fallen to them in recent years.”

Queen Roberta might disagree with his decision, he thought, but they'd be long gone by then, and at the moment he was far more concerned with finding the King and Queen, hopefully in good health, than with the well being of a pack of two-legged jackals. Leofwine watched as the soldiers tied the villains to the company's horses and led them away by the reigns. He walked up a stairway set into the wall and stood atop it to view the lay of the land behind them. The white mountains bordered all of the western horizon. Through the trees he spied what appeared to be a multi-tiered city carved into them. He glanced to the side as Gunther returned. “Where d'you think they went, sire? The king and queen, I mean.”

“Haven't the foggiest. The crystal's a dud. They might have gone over there,” Leofwine pointed at the city across valley, “Or they might have continued to the north. I'm going to continue on the assumption that they were not killed by the bandits we just rounded up, in any case, as I saw none of their weapons or other belongings on them.” He tried not to think about the passing of Tad Cooper, unburdened by any riders, just days before.

* * *

They made it a couple more tiers up before Richard conceded to his growing exhaustion, despite how near to the top they were now. He still felt like he was being watched, but he also had to concede to Roberta's appeal to reason. They'd run into no one but a few nesting birds and a family of squirrels who'd chattered angrily at them, upset at the intrusion. They ducked into one of the abandoned homes to set out their bedrolls. They'd had to leave the tent behind some miles back, as it had proved to heavy to carry for long without Tad Cooper's broad back, but they were sheltered well enough from the weather in here. Richard yawned as he unrolled his blanket and shook it out before climbing underneath it. “Maybe the bandits are camped out along that first wall somewhere?”

“Possibly. I haven't seen any campfire smoke, but they may be shrewd enough not to set any. The merchant caravans habitually follow the bank of the river up to north, I believe.”

“Yes, there's a city there, I think. I forget the name of it. I should know the name of it.”

“Beyond that big lake? Dell, I believe. They raise sheep in the fields around the lake and that mountain behind them, they do some weaving there but mostly sell the raw wool to the Hortentsian traders. I think there are some iron mines to east of it too, if I'm remembering correctly.”

“Wool? They don't have sheep in Hortensia?”

“They do but the wool isn't the same quality. They don't get much rain there, so the grass isn't as rich and as such, they produce a lesser quality of wool.”

“Huh. I never knew that. Do you know everything, Bobbie?”

She laughed. “Hardly! But my tutors were better than yours, I suppose. My parents were more forward-thinking than most of their peers, I think. Most wouldn't have thought the expense worth spending on a daughter.”

Richard rolled over toward her. “Mine didn't think the expense was worth spending on a spare son, I guess. Kingsley got all the good tutors. I just had one for a couple of years and I don't think he liked me much.”

Roberta tucked her head beneath Richard's chin. “Didn't do Kingsley much good anyway, did it? He was still stupid as a sack of hammers if he trusted Madalena enough to turn his back on her.”

“Hmph. I also-”

“No you didn't, Richard. You tried to convince yourself you loved her because you're a hopeless romantic who hated the idea of being in a loveless marriage, and didn't always understand what she was doing, but you never _trusted _her. There's a difference between ignorance and arrogant stupidity, I assure you. If you had really trusted her, you wouldn't have kept Gareth so close after you married her.” Richard huffed a bit, his breath stirring her hair, and Roberta regretted bringing up a sore subject, so she changed it. “How is your arm doing, by the way? That herb seems to have cleared up the poison, but if it becomes inflamed–”

Richard flexed his left arm above her, testing the joint. “Seems fine. I'd mostly forgotten about it, to be honest.”

“Can't be too bad off, then, if you aren't noticing it. I kept some of that herb, if we need it. I don't know if it needs to be fresh to work, though.”

Richard was silent for several minutes and Roberta thought he'd fallen asleep when he finally replied. “It still has some virtue when dried, you can hang onto it.”

Roberta sat up in the dark, her curiosity getting the better of her now. She peered down at her husband in the thin moonlight from a window across the room. “Richard, how on Earth do you know that?”

Richard snuffled and rolled over onto his back. “The king used a dried bundle of it to heal that other man.”

His voice was drowsy and he was on the very edge of sleep, Roberta knew, but she was beginning to wonder, now, if his dreams were something more than mere fantasy. His descriptions were more like memory than the usual hodge-podge nonsense she knew dreams to be made of. She phrased her next question in a neutral voice, hoping he was still awake enough to answer without feeling defensive. “What king was that, Richard?”

“The king in this city, Bobbie. With the dark hair and grey eyes, don't you remember? He told me about the athelas...”

“Oh he did? That was generous of him, then.”

Richard was silent for several minutes, then began snoring. Roberta sighed, giving up for the moment. “You're the only king in this city, Richard. Maybe you'll eventually realize that.” Roberta lay down beside him, and lay awake for some time as the mystery of it all rolled about in her head, before finally joining him in slumber.

* * *

Richard stood atop the prow, looking down over the city, although he could not recall how he had arrived there. The sky was a clear blue, and beyond it lay not a forest, but a field which clearly had very recently seen war. Looking down over the walls below, he noted gaps and broken stone, and many people rushing to and fro on urgent errand. There were stonemasons of an odd build, rather short and stocky, and all heavily bearded, working busy as beavers to fix the walls. The road beyond the city was filled with people, some on foot, some on horseback, some in carts, all moving to enter the city. They stood aside, however, as one particular group passed, sunlight reflecting on bright clothing and garlands of flowers and banners which snapped in the clear wind of the day.

Richard looked up to the sky as white clouds rushed past and the sun climbed higher into the sky. He felt the same sense of time passing without passing as he had in the hall where he'd seen the king, before. When he closed his eyes and when he opened them again, he was no longer atop the city, but now in the courtyard below, and again with no sense of how he'd arrived there. The great silver gates were gone entirely, the doorway laying open to the scarred field beyond.

Before him stood the king, surrounded by others. Four men dressed in black and wearing bright helms bearing the wings he'd seen across the city's monuments the day before came bearing a large box of black wood. The younger man whom he'd seen before, who had also been ill and had been healed by the king with the athelas, spoke briefly, and the king replied. The former turned and opened the box and drew forth a crown wrought of the same impossibly bright silver of the seemingly missing gates. It, too, bore wings at the side, and white gemstones which caught the sunlight and made his eyes squint and water to look upon. The king took the crown from the younger man and held it aloft, speaking in another tongue, as foreign and unintelligible as the first, but with a more pleasing cadence, almost a melody.

The sun grew brighter and the edges of everything around him seemed to flow and smear together and Richard felt light-headed. The grey eyes of the king turned suddenly and met his. Richard froze under that gaze, stricken. Then he fainted, the world going black around him as the king's voice echoed inside his head.

_Out of the great sea to middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world._

* * *

Richard sat up with a start, his heart beating swiftly in his chest. He threw his blanket aside and scrambled to his feet, bending to retrieve the Hero Sword where it lay beside him as though he feared it had been stolen in the night. Roberta woke a moment later, rubbing her eyes as she rose. “Mid-morning already? I think we overslept, pup-pup.” She stared at his back, noticing his shoulders rising and falling with his heavy breath. “Are you alright, Richard? Did you have another nightmare?”

Richard nodded, staring at the sword in his hands as though he'd never seen it before. He _had_ seen it, though, not here but in his dream. He hadn't noted it within the vision, or dream, or whatever it had been, but looking now he _knew _he'd seen it. Roberta came up behind him, wrapping an arm around him and rubbing at his shoulder. “What is it, pup-pup? Tell me, please?”

“I saw this sword. Here. Well not _here_ here, but in the city outside, just before the gates. The man who was also ill before was healed and he was there. He brought a crown to the king.”

Roberta bit her tongue. The stubborn part of her wanted to protest, tell him there was no other king. The rest of her wanted him to continue, however. Whatever he was seeing, the more detail she could get, the closer she'd be to figuring out what had overcome her husband in these last days. “Alright, a king was crowned here. You said you saw the sword?”

“Yes... the Hero Sword, it was on his belt. Not mine. _His_.”

“Alright, he had the sword. Anything else in this... this vision?”

Richard turned out of her grasp to hook the sword to his own belt and went over to the open doorway leading out of the empty building they'd spent the night in, desperate to feel the breeze on his face, if only to remind him that he was actually still alive. “The city's walls were damaged, there were all these little bearded stonemasons trying to fix them. And the gates were missing. There was a the field outside – no trees, just a big field. I think there must have been a terrible war just days ago...”

Something dark flitted out of the corner of Richard's eye as he stood in the doorway. His tale forgotten, he dashed out into the empty street, frantically looking about at the walls above. Roberta slipped around him, drawing her own sword, but re-sheathing it after a moment. “There's nothing here, Richard.”

“I _know_ I saw something this time, Bobbie! I may be imagining things in my sleep, but I promise you I'm not going mad!”

“We've seen birds... maybe one flew past just now?”

“It was larger than even a raven, you have to believe me! We're being watched, I know it. I can feel it, it's making the back of my neck itch!”

Roberta walked up and down the road a few yards to either side, peering around at the walls and behind old columns. She came to a halt after a moment, closing her eyes to listen, and heard nothing but the wind and distant birdsong and her husband's agitated pacing. “Well, Richard, if someone is following us, they're being exceptionally sneaky about it. Indeed, they must be able to scale a vertical wall like a spider...”

Richard thrust his hands into his hair, scratching at his scalp as he grit his teeth. He was growing more frustrated with this entire venture every day. They'd been bitten by insects, attacked by bandits, he'd been poisoned, and kept having extremely vivid, life-like dreams about some other king he'd never met but felt like he should have. And who apparently had his sword. Was he seeing the future? The past? Was it all just a delusion brought on by too much fresh forest air?

Roberta went back inside and rolled up their beds, re-emerging to hand Richard his. They stuffed them back into their packs in a heavy silence. Once they'd done that, Richard paced about for a minute, unsure of what he wanted to do. “I wish Tad Cooper would come back.”

“Why don't we head up to the last level and see if we can't catch sight of him from the end of that pier, alright?”

Richard nodded and gestured for her to lead the way and they continued through the city. Once they emerged from the winding ramp up to the highest level, they found themselves in a broad courtyard. A tower stood behind them, carved seamlessly out of the white mountain stone. An area of weed-covered soil lay in the center before a set of stairs leading upward onto the long “ship's prow” they'd seen (and walked beneath) in the city below.

The pier itself was lined on either side with more of the massive statues that had littered the streets below, stone kings of old keeping watch still over an abandoned city, centuries of rain and wind having worn their stern expressions into something softer. Richard jammed his hands into his pockets, feeling very small and insignificant all of a sudden as he trailed after Roberta. At the very end of the pier was a bench of sorts, the tall back of it shaped like the wings of the king's crown. The top of the wings had broken at some point and the chunk of stone lay on the ground behind it. Richard bent down to look at it, feeling almost mournful for some unidentifiable reason.

Roberta stepped around him to seat herself on the bench and stare out at the world beyond, looking for Tad Cooper or some sign of Leofwine's company, but Richard could not bring himself to walk the last few steps of their journey. He turned and sat down upon the stone fragment, resting his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands for a moment as he struggled to make sense of things. A shadow fell across Richard's face and he looked up, expecting to see Roberta standing over him, although he'd not heard her move.

It was not Roberta peering down at him, though. The figure's face was shadowed, but bright eyes stared out at him. The man was exceptionally tall, had long dark hair and grey eyes set in a face that managed to be both youthful and ancient at once, and a rather oddly shaped set of ears. Richard should have been frightened, and although his hand reflexively went to the hilt of his sword, he did not attempt to draw it. At least one thing made sense, now, and Richard felt a small measure of relief at the confirmation that he was not imagining everything he'd been seeing. “You've been following us!”


	4. Chapter 4

The man cocked one eyebrow questioningly and reached out toward Richard. Richard frowned up at the strange figure, caught in a moment of supreme indecision as he heard Roberta's footsteps emerging from the other side of the bench. The figure leaped backward with the grace of a dancer, coming to land several feet away as Roberta drew her own sword with none of Richard's hesitation. The figure swept into a low bow, offering his neck, as it were, in a conciliatory gesture.

Shaking himself, Richard finally stood, stepping past his wife to satisfy his curiosity before Roberta could cut him into many small pieces. “Who are you and what do you want from us? If this is your city, I would beg your pardon for the intrusion, of course, but we meant no harm. I mean, it's not like the gate was closed, so how can you expect anyone to know if you don't want company!?”

The stranger laughed in response, although Richard was unsure where the humor was in the situation. He was starting to get genuinely annoyed, and yet still felt a need to justify himself. “We were looking for bandits in this area and thought they might be hiding here, that is all. We were separated from the rest of our company days ago.” Richard squinted at the man, noting his odd manner of dress, which reminded him somewhat of an engraving in an old book he'd read as a child. There was something almost insubstantial about the figure. _I knew this place is haunted,_ he thought. _If this man is some sort of ghost I am going to run all the way back down to that unlocked gate and never come back. _Roberta sheathed her sword behind him, finally, her posture less tense but still defensive. Richard reach back to briefly squeeze her hand.

“This city is not mine, sire. You have caused no offense, I assure you.”

There was something melodious in the stranger's voice, which brought to mind the speech of the king in his dream the night before. “Hmm. No, I suppose it would not be yours. There was a king here. Or will be, perhaps. I'm not quite sure, actually, but he didn't really look all that much like you... except something about his eyes, maybe...”

Laughter again. “The answer is both. The former, certainly. There have been many kings in this city, although not lately. The latter? Time will tell, I suppose, but I should think so. If you should like there to be, in any case.”

Richard scowled, feeling more and more like there was some joke he was not in on, which, if his experience of such jests in his childhood were any indication, would soon make him out to be the hapless punchline. The man bowed and rose smiling, holding out his hand once again. Richard stared at the proffered hand, still feeling confused and ill-used, and not at all ready to trust.

The stranger withdrew his hand, his mouth quirking in a mild expression of disappointment. “I mean you no harm, I assure you. I was following you because you carry that sword.” He pointed at the blade hanging from Richard's belt.

“The Hero Sword? I pulled it from a stump a few years ago, if you must know. No one else was able to do it, so it's mine. Finders-keepers. You have some claim on it then?” Scowling, Richard drew it and thrust it into the stone pier, his temper finally getting the better of him. “Take it then, if you want it!”

The stranger sighed and ran a hand over his head. “This isn't going well at all, is it? I don't want the sword for myself, sire. It is not mine, but yours. More importantly, though, is what it says about you.”

“Oh, the whole 'One True King to Unite Them All' business? Yes, yes, I know all about that little prophecy.” Richard pulled the sword up from the stone and put it away. “I'm doing my best, alright? You try getting seven kings... well, four kings, two queens, and one 'democratically elected' _president _– elected by maybe a sixth of the adult population at most, mind you – to sit down and act like reasonable adults instead of squabbling children and starting wars over imagined insults just because they wake up and want a bit of some river one morning!” Richard glared at the stranger for another minute before the anger bled out of him and he ran a hand over his face. “I... I'm sorry, really, it's been a trying few days... few _years_... and I don't even know you, why am I yelling at you?” Richard thrust his hands into his hair, balling them into fists in frustration. He felt Roberta's hand come to rest on his shoulder and stopped trying to pull his hair out, and leaned back into her grip instead, letting it ground him.

The stranger's head cocked to one side as he studied Richard for a long moment. “I do not seek to belittle you, or what you are trying to do, which is certainly no simple task. This kingdom was not shattered in a single day, nor shall it be healed in one, and there is a growing threat nearby which you do not yet know of. But you bear a sword I know well, which was long ago carried by a dear friend, and then his heirs, for many generations. I had feared that the primary line of descent was broken and lost when I saw that your elder brother bore no resemblance to the man claimed to be his father, but rather quite a bit to another member of your parents' court. I had not known your mother had eventually had a second child, or perhaps I would have taken an interest much sooner. You certainly look very much like your father. The sword could not be fooled, in any case. True, there are undoubtedly other branches of the lineage out in the world, and had you died, another might have taken it in time, but that is not what came to pass. You are the one who took it and now it is yours, so long as you draw breath. I would only ask that you use it well.”

Richard shrugged off the commentary about Kingsley, having long accepted that his brother was only halfway so. He also did not care to mention to this stranger that he had only a daughter, and whether she married or bore children at some future point would be her own business entirely, or perhaps this magic sword didn't like girls anyway, in which case, bugger it. He mulled over the rest the stranger's circuitous ramblings for a moment, then stopped, his mind settling on one point in particular. “Many generations...? But you cannot be older than thirty winters--” The stranger smiled, as one would at a slow-witted child, which did nothing to help Richard's annoyance. This man claimed to know something about him, but spoke mostly nonsense, and Richard was rapidly losing patience. Roberta kept her hold on his shoulder, her grip growing somewhat tighter as she sensed him tensing up.

“I am quite a bit older than thirty winters. I would not expect you to believe me easily, as all of my kindred have departed these shores and my kind are no longer known, save in some rather fanciful and inaccurate tales. I am one of what were once called the Eldar. Such fables as still exist in your tongue might call me an elf, although most of what those stories tell have little to do with the truth of the matter.”

Richard simply stared at him, not quite knowing how to respond to such a tall tale. He knew he had a reputation of being gullible, and also knew that others often tried to take advantage of the “naive” king. He'd learned, especially in the last few years, not to put his trust in others so swiftly as he once did. “Elves. Right. Of course, what else would you be? Er, is there something you actually wanted from me, or am I free to pass?”

The smile evaporated from the face of the self-professed elf, or whatever he was. “I had only wished to speak to you, and give you a warning of something that may come to trouble your kingdom in time, but if you have some urgent errand, far be it from me to be the cause of any tardiness, sire.” He stepped aside, bowing again.

Richard took a step forward, and another, and a third, with Roberta following closely behind him, but he hesitated, causing his wife to walk into his back and swear under her breath. _I have to stop doing that to Bobbie_, he mused idly, as he turned to look again at the irritating stranger. “You know, it occurs to me that you seem to know all about who I am, but you never gave me _your_ name.”

“I have a few, in fact, although I have been called none of them for many long years now.” The stranger paused to think for a moment. “One of your ancestors knew me as a foster-brother and called me Elladan, and I suppose you may call me the same, if it please you, my king.”

Richard nodded once in acknowledgment as this Elladan gave another dramatic bow which Richard could not decide whether was mocking or sincere. He turned to leave, then turned back again, feeling imminently foolish, but unable to just let go of what this fairy-story character was saying. “What _do_ you know about this sword, exactly?” Richard remembered the king in his dream, who bore this sword, and now wondered if his dream was something more than his own mind's overheated imaginings.

Elladan glanced around, then gestured back toward the base of the pier. “Why don't we go where we can sit, perhaps? There I will tell you whatever you wish.”

* * *

There were stone benches set about the courtyard, all facing a grass-covered expanse that Richard stared out at as he sat between his wife and the figure who had been shadowing them and making him feel like a fool since they had entered this otherwise uninhabited city. The courtyard felt worryingly empty, as though something important was missing, and it bothered him. He pointed out at the broad patch of weeds. “If you truly have lived for centuries, what was there, then, before?”

“A white tree with a rather lofty pedigree. A long tale for another time, preferably with plenty of wine to accompany it. Much of this world's history has been lost, I fear. Some of it lay beneath us, two tiers down in a library, although I'm afraid much of it has been consumed by vermin, and the rest is in a language none now can read save myself.”

“A white tree? I suppose that would explain the banners...”

Elladan turned toward him, eyes narrowing at Richard, although the slight up tilt of his mouth betrayed his amusement. “Who is the mysterious one now? No banners of this city have survived the ages.“

Richard shrugged, trying to play it off casually but nonetheless feeling his face redden at being caught out at such a careless slip.

Elladan watched him for a few more moments before continuing. “Hmm... well, you asked about your sword. It has in recent generations been called 'The Hero Sword' but its true name is 'Anduril,' or the 'Flame of the West' although it was called something else in an even more distant past. Suffice it to say, it has a rather long and dramatic history, but again, now is not the time for it.”

“Anduril, is it? And the king carried it here in this city.”

“Yes, several of them, as I said. It was passed from king to king along with the crown. Although that particular item remains hidden elsewhere.”

Richard shook his head, tired of acting like he knew nothing. “No, I mean the king I saw, in... in a dream. Last night, and before in another. He looked at me. Spoke, said something about his heirs abiding... Oh, I really just don't know!” He screwed his eyes shut and rubbed at his forehead, feeling a headache building.

“He's had three of these dreams, now,” Roberta interjected. “I'm afraid they leave him feeling rather out of sorts the next day, and last night's was perhaps the most... complicated... of them, from what he's told me.”

Elladan bent slightly to peer at Richard, concern creasing his brow. “Your bloodline – the Dunedain that is, being descendants of Numenor - in the past has been known for having certain abilities, including a kind of foresight or prophetic vision, from time to time. It has dwindled over time as generations comingled with other blood. I can admit I am somewhat surprised you have experience this. I don't suppose you would tell me what you have seen?”

Richard hunched in on himself, feeling exposed and out of his depth. He did not know what a Dunedain was, or Numenor, and he certainly had never had any particular gift of foresight before. _Can't see anything useful, can I? Dead kings. Tch!_ He caught Roberta's eye, an unspoken question between them. She took his hand between her own, rubbing circles over his knuckles with her thumb. Sighing, Richard launched into an account of his recent dreams, beginning with the first lord's hall, followed by the tale of his poisoning at the end of a bandit's sword and the second dream revealing the use of the athelas, and ending with his vision of the coronation of the city's past king. “All very fascinating, I suppose, but does it even _mean _anything?”

Elladan sat in silence, tapping a finger against his chin in contemplation. “The first, if your account of the location is accurate, I believe to be a keep called Arnach, the remains of which you were camped in. The man you saw at the head of the hall was called Forlong the Fat. And I am sorry to report that he fell in the same battle you saw the aftermath of in your second and third dreams. I can't say for certain what moment you saw, but the messenger may have been the one who arrived with the message which then sent Forlong riding out with two hundred of his men for the defense of this city. The second dream is where you first saw the one who knew me as a foster-brother, the first to carry your sword under its reforged name. He was a skilled healer in his own right. Fortuitous, given your condition at the time. The third was the day of his coronation after the fall of a very dangerous enemy and the end of the war fought to defeat him. Although it was no army which ultimately brought about his demise, but something rather more surprising and unexpected. That is another rather long tale which can wait for a less urgent time.”

Roberta leaned forward, peering around Richard at Elladan. “So the first was... random, it seems, based on the location we were camped. The second clearly saved my husband's life and that seems plain enough. The third, though? It was a rather elaborate demonstration if it served no purpose at all, I should think!”

Elladan sighed, leaning back on the bench and stretching his long legs out before him. “The interpretation of visions was never my particular area of expertise. My father might have known, my grandmother certainly would have had some insight, but neither linger on these shores, and I cannot say myself. I can tell you one thing – I said that this city is not mine, because this city is rightfully your husband's, should he choose to take possession of it. Indeed, his ancestral kingdom stretches from the bounds of Ithilien to the east, up to the borders of the frozen north, and west to the sea. This is but a small remnant. It has waxed and waned, fractured and reunited, many times over the ages, as its fortunes have risen and fallen. Such is the way of the world, where time flows like a river, turning this way and that, but always coming to the sea in the end. My foster-brother, whom you saw crowned, was the one to reunite them at the close of the third age of this world. We are now many centuries into the fourth age, and it has fractured yet again. It has suffered through another a long winter, and perhaps it is now time for spring to come again. I cannot tell you for certain that you will be successful at tying it all back together for a third time in its history. What I have seen in recent years in those times I have ventured out of this valley into other parts, though, is that there is chaos and lawlessness under the hands of rulers who live by greed and self-interest, and another evil is perhaps growing to the east in one of its old nests. The great power of old is long spent and broken, and evil mostly lurks as a whisper in the hearts of men these days, but I would not suggest ignoring it.” Elladan paused, then addressed Richard directly. “It has been perhaps fifty years since I travelled in the direction of your childhood home, but I recall your own father in his youth was rather heartless at times. I cannot say what sort of king you are, or may become, but I do not sense such darkness in you. I do believe you have... potential, shall we say?”

Richard scratched at his beard and shuffled his feet, unsure how to respond. “I was a rather pathetic king for most of my life, I must confess. I'm trying to do better, though...”

Elladan stood suddenly, reaching out for a third time. This time, Richard accepted the outstretched hand and let his new companion pull him to his feet with a strength he had not expected from such a thin figure. Elladan did the same for Roberta and bowed again, then beckoned them toward the tower behind them. He drew a large key out of his tunic which hung on a long chain, and used it to open the doors and ushered them inside.

The great hall beyond was very long indeed, and, in contrast to the exterior, carved from a mix of the white stone of the mountain and the jet-black of the outer wall of the lowest level. Massive black stone columns climbed up to a vaulted ceiling of carved wings, and at the end was a chair to one side of a set of stairs leading up to a raised platform. At the head, of course, was the throne. Richard was unsurprised to see the massive carved wings behind it, continuing the motif. “These people _really_ liked birds, didn't they?”

Elladan laughed. “You might say that, I suppose. They were the descendants of great mariners, and the wings are a reference to sea-birds. The white tree you mentioned seeing in your dream was more specifically an emblem of the king, although it could be seen all across Gondor in one form or another.”

“The tree that grew in the court outside, you mean?”

“That was the basis for the pattern. The white tree had a lineage going back to the earliest days of the world's creation, but again–“

“–a long tale for another day, yes. I think I'm catching on, here.”

Richard wandered through the hall, taking a meandering path between the columns. High windows near the ceiling had once had glass in them, he suspected, and there had probably not been birds nesting atop the columns and leaving white streaks down the side of the dark stone when there was a king here. Everything was rather dusty, with piles of it up against the right wall where centuries of winds had blown it. He came to a stop at the bottom of the steps leading to the winged throne and sat down upon the lowest of them, resting his chin on his hands. Roberta followed him soon after and he leaned against her when she sat beside him. “What on Earth would I even do with all of this, Bobbie?”

* * *

Leofwine set up camp where the bandits had been, trying to ignore the smell. It really was a strategically useful position, though, he had to admit. The wall's parapets made a useful lookout and the roads (what was left of them at least) lead in all directions. He sent out scouts in all four of the compass directions. Something about the eastern road and the ruins and mountains beyond the river gave him an ill feeling, especially, and he hoped the King and Queen had not gone that way.

Come nightfall, though, he regretted his decision. He certainly had not expected spiders the size of a mastiff to scale the wall like it was nothing, to say the least.

* * *

“Orcs, they were once called, although in your language you might call them goblins. The bandits you dispatched are of mixed blood, though, being partially descended from men as well; there are no full-blooded orcs left in this world, thankfully.”

“Partially... what? _Ewwww!_” Richard tried to push back the sudden wave of nausea. Why would anyone want to do _that_ with one of _those?_ “I think that's the nastiest thing I've heard of since Galavant recruited that zombie army to fight, and those were disgusting enough.”

Roberta nodded at her husband's assessment, although her own reaction was not so dramatic. “Why are they emerging now, all of a sudden?”

Elladan shrugged. “For centuries they've lived in the mountains to the east, and the valleys and plains behind them. They're generally quite disorganized, living in small clans that fight amongst one another over constantly shifting territories and causing grief to no one but each other. I haven't seen them work together like this in a very long time. The only logical conclusion is that a leader powerful enough to intimidate or bribe them in some fashion has emerged. I generally avoid the area to the east of the great river, but there have been moonless, cloud-covered nights which should have been pitch-dark, where I have seen lights of some sort flashing from an ancient keep once known as Minas Ithil in its earliest history, and later as Minas Morgul. It has, in the past, been home to evil, and I fear it may be housing some ambitious would-be sorcerer now.”

Richard turned to Roberta, raising one eyebrow in question. She nodded at him, knowing what he was thinking, and they both spoke at the same time “D'dew.”

Elladan tilted his head at them, puzzled. “D'what?”

“Dark Dark Evil Ways,” Roberta explained. “A former... rival, you might call her, named Madalena, was a student of sorts, of this sorcery, or whatever you'd like to call her mischief. Richard defeated her former teacher a few years ago but our scouts have brought rumors of some self-styled 'Dark Evil Lord' that she might have sought out for further tutelage. We've been trying to find out for years now where she went, and now I think I might have a fairly good idea.”

Richard sighed, tilting his head back and scrubbing his hands over his face. “Why couldn't it have just been bandits? 'Oh, this won't take long Richard! We'll just go and get rid of a few bandits and be home in a month! Little Prince Harry can't clean up his own messes!' Bloody _hell_...”

Roberta rolled her eyes at his impression of her, more amused than offended. “I'm sorry, my love, but I think we don't have much choice, unless we want to wait until old Mads turns up on our doorstep with an entire army of these goblin men and God knows what else.”

“Oh, you're right, as always. Pearl really is going to forget all about us at this rate.” Richard slumped forward, grumbling to himself. “Well, let's go back outside and see if we can't get hold of Leofwine, I suppose.”

* * *

Elladan stumbled back with a startled shout as they reached the end of the pier, drawing his sword and pushing Richard aside when the beast landed with a thump and a roar.

“What are you shouting about? And stop waving that sword at Tad Cooper, you'll upset him, he's sensitive!” Richard shoved his way past the stunned elf to give his pet an affectionate pat on the nose. “I knew you'd come back to me old boy!”

Elladan stood with his mouth hanging open as he watched the king scratching a live wyvern under the chin, patting it and cooing at it like it were a puppy. “That is not a pet, it's a full-grown mountain wyvern!”

Roberta shrugged beside him. “Richard's had Tad Cooper for over three years now, raised him from a hatchling, and he is definitely Richard's pet, although I think Richard sometimes underestimates him. I will say that having a dragon comes in dead useful at times.”

Elladan stepped back and sheathed his sword, not taking his eyes off of Tad Cooper for even a moment. “A wyvern, not a dragon. A true dragon would not even fit on this pier and there are none of them left in this world, thankfully. But nonetheless, it is not a 'pet' by any stretch of the imagination... How on Earth did he...?”

“Tame him? Richard didn't, I don't think. As I said, he's taken care of Tad Cooper since he was small enough to fit in one's hand. I suppose Tad Cooper simply trusts him, is all. He can be temperamental, and most of the castle staff know to give him due respect, but I wouldn't call him overly aggressive, unless you're stupid enough to try and harm Richard or our daughter.”

The corner of Elladan's mouth twitched slightly. “Hmm. Right. Well, I certainly did not expect that.”

Roberta stepped around Tad Cooper, who was now rolling over for a belly rub from Richard, and pulled the calling-stone from the pouch on her belt, hoping against hope that this high up, she might have some success.

“Leofwine?” Roberta cursed and gave the fizzing stone another shake. “Leofwine!”

After several long moments, a haggard and bruised face finally appeared. “My Queen? Thank heavens!”

“Dear God, Leofwine, what happened?”

* * *

It took bare minutes to cross the treetops between the end of the pier and the wall beyond on the back of Tad Cooper. Their new friend had not been willing to mount up behind them, and so after taking directions from him for this Minas Morgul, they left him to his empty city. Roberta had a feeling they would cross paths again sooner or later, but at the moment her chief concern was her head knight and oldest friend.

“Giant spiders, what the _hell_?! As if these goblin men weren't trouble enough!” Richard had Tad Cooper set down just before the old east gate in the wall and slid out of the saddle, helping Roberta down behind him. Three of their soldiers lay dead under cloaks and Leofwine was clearly worse for the wear as he sat on a wooden crate binding up a slash going down the inside of his right arm. Several other knights, squires and soldiers were in varying states and none of them looked like they'd had a good night's sleep. The dead spiders lay strewn about on their backs, countless jagged legs curling upward and a poisonous looking green liquid oozing from their slashed abdomens.

Roberta walked up to her oldest friend, kneeling in front of him and taking the bandages to finish what he was struggling to complete. “I'm truly sorry, Leofwine, we should not have gone so far ahead of you.”

Leofwine lifted her chin with his good hand, smiling at her gently. “No, my Queen, this is not your fault. I don't think any of us suspected to run into such creatures. I should have set more men to watch, but I fear I grew complacent after our victory earlier in the evening. These are wild lands, indeed.”

Richard toed another crate toward the two of them and plopped down onto it. “We have bigger problems than spiders, I think. I mean the spiders _are_ pretty big, of course, massive actually, and definitely a problem, but–”

“Richard's point, Leofwine, is that Madalena and her D.E.L. may have a hand in all of this. I suppose it was only a matter of time before she reappeared. I had hoped... well, it doesn't matter now. We met someone in the old city to the west, who keeps an eye on these lands, it seems. He marked down on the map where he thinks the trouble is coming from, it's not too far to the east, just up into the far mountains beyond the river. I don't think we should just rush up in there, though, who knows what she's learned in the past three years...”

“I agree on that point, certainly. Well, this expedition hasn't been a mere janitor's mop-up, it seems. No wonder our scouts could find nothing all these years, this is a very remote area.”

* * *

The soldiers and squires had done a swift job of packing up the camp, despite their injuries. None of them were keen to remain another night, to say the least. Three were sent back toward home with the dead and the rest returned to the city – Minas Tirith, Elladan had called it – setting up in a massive stables just across from the main gate on the lowest level. It must have held dozens of horses at some point in the past, and Roberta thought there must be more similar stables in higher levels, if her assessment of the scope of the city's former defenses was accurate. The more she looked at it, the more she thought about it, the more this city astounded her. It wasn't just a city – it had been the seat of a great power. The ruins they'd passed through had all been part of this realm. At least one had once held a lord who'd had two hundred loyal warriors at his disposal, who had ridden to this city to defend it, and there must have been many more besides.

Richard had gone out into the city on his own, slipping away for over an hour when Roberta had not been looking, but he soon returned with his hands and his pockets stuffed with more of the athelas that grew from cracks in the stone throughout the city. Roberta watched him with slight wonder as he set water to boil on his own and steeped the leaves, dragging knight and squire and soldier alike, one by one to his side, to tend to their hurts with his new miracle herb. He was a bit clumsy with the bandages and his bedside manner could certainly use some work (and less nonsensical babbling), and some of the younger squires and soldiers were shocked into silent terror at their King's sudden personal attention, unaccustomed to dealing with him directly rather than through Leofwine or the Queen.

Roberta fought down the urge to go and take over and get the job done in half the time. Richard was learning to do more and more on his own, and that wasn't a bad thing – far from it. He'd rarely been allowed to do anything for himself for most of his life, and it had stunted and fettered him in certain ways. That he was able to move past such limitations so late in life gave Roberta an odd sense of hope for the world. _We should all be so willing to learn_, she thought. Richard could be stubborn and resistant to change, sometimes, but he was equally bull-headed when he wanted to do something new or do something differently, and woe betide anyone who got in his way.

Leofwine appeared at her side and sat down next to her. “He's not such a bad king, hmm?” He jostled her with his elbow, smiling at her.

Roberta smiled back, although she kept her gaze on her husband. “Oh, I think he's shaping up alright. Still needs a little more polish, but he's getting there.”

Leofwine gave Roberta a pat on the shoulder. “I'm happy for you, Bobbie, truly. Who knew that muddy little girl with skinned knees and a wooden sword would be a queen someday?”

Roberta shook her head, trying to ignore the sudden heat in her face. “I didn't marry him for the crown, Leo. Indeed, if he'd ended up a pauper, I don't know that it would have mattered much to me.”

Leofwine laughed. “I never would have accused you of such deviousness, child. Believe me, I know better! You always wore your heart on your sleeve, and cared nothing for the opinions of others, even when you barely stood higher than my knees. He was an exile when you found him again, after all.” Leofwine gave her shoulder another squeeze before growing more serious. “I don't know what this D.E.L. business will lead us into, but if what we have run into already is any indication, it will be more trouble than a sack of wet cats. I think we should send a few of our most skilled scouts to see what is in the area – not too close to that tower, mind you, I don't know what sort of sorcery is at work here, but perhaps we can get some idea of how organized our enemy is from a distance.”

“We could take Tad Cooper overhead, although that would certainly be announcing our presence. If Madalena lives, she will likely guess it is Richard, although I don't think she believed Tad Cooper was a real dragon during the last battle.”

Leofwine sat back, mulling over her suggestion. “I truly think we should go in on foot, first, and in small numbers. We don't know what we are dealing with here, other than these goblin-men and, apparently, spiders the size of a small hog. Which is bad enough on its own. We know Madalena, but this Dark Evil Lord chap is an unknown quantity.”

“You may be right, as usual. I do wonder what happened to Gareth and Sid, though, if they ever even made it this far east, and what might have been their fate. I know I get very cross with Gareth, but I don't think I will be happy at all if he's been killed. It would upset Richard terribly... Well, let's try the scouts, first, once everyone has recovered, and we can decide afterward what to do.”

Leofwine nodded decisively. “Sounds like we have a plan, then, at least to begin things. As for your husband's old guard and his companion, only time will tell. I would not worry over them yet, though, we have no evidence either way.”

A loud thump interrupted their conversation, and Roberta looked up to see a young squire had fainted, falling to the floor at Richard's feet. Richard looked up at her, his expression a mixture of shock and helplessness. “I did nothing, I swear! He just sat down and I asked him to pull his tunic away from the wound, and he took one look at me and fainted!”

Roberta laughed and rose to go help her husband out of his current predicament. “Star-struck I suppose. You're just that famous, pup-pup. Go ahead and dress up the wound and we'll find some quiet spot for him to recover in.”


	5. Chapter 5

It had been... what, about two weeks now he'd spent in this bloody filthy cage? The water was rancid, the rats tasted awful, and to top it all off, part of him still loved the damned woman, despite it all. “Why? Why do I let her get to me?”

“Because she's horrible and pretty and you're just plain horrible?”

“Oh, shut up, Sid. Some help you turned out to be!” Gareth pounded his fist against the bars, sneering despite the fact that Sid could not see the expression from the cell next door. It had taken years to track down Madalena and the D.E.L., chasing one dead end rumor after another, tramping across six of the seven kingdoms until finally they'd ended up out here almost by accident. Why the D.E.L. had chosen to hole up in some weird old tower in the arse-end of nowhere was a complete mystery that Gareth couldn't be bothered to figure out an answer for. At the moment, the only solution he was interested in was a way to get out of this dump, Madalena be damned. “I told her this d'dew shit was a bad idea, right from the start. Right from the start! Stupid bint never would listen to reason. Not good enough to just be horrible, she had to go and be _evil _and now she's... She's a...”

“Evil bitch?”

“Yes, yes, I get it, Sid. Stupid me, thinking I could change her mind...”

Two weeks earlier he'd climbed into this tower, hacking his way through spiders for which there was no boot in the world large enough, not to mention the D.E.L.'s endless arse-ugly henchmen. All the flashy, fashionable accessories in the world couldn't fix faces like _that_. And top it all off, after all the time that had passed, after everything he'd gone through – _suffered _through – for her, she'd laughed in his face. She'd laughed, right in his face, as she waved that stupid little stick and had him and Sid both tied up and hanging from their ankles mid-air like slaughtered pigs at the butcher's.

_Save me, Gareth? Oh, wow, that's rich! I have more power than your pathetic little mind could ever dream of, and you think you're going to just march in here and take it all away from me? Years ago, I chose Richard's power and wealth over Galavant's pathetic love – and he was far better looking than you, mind – and now that I have vastly more power and wealth than that pathetic child-king could have ever dreamed of, you really think I'm going to give it up for _you? _Save me, Gareth? You can't even save yourself!_

And just to rub salt in the wound, the D.E.L. had smirked over her shoulder the whole time, like a proud teacher watching his star pupil. And now, here he was, in a cage overlooking a massive hall where the ugliest damned bastards Gareth had ever set eyes on ate filth and brawled to pass the time. Their numbers were growing, he noted, as each day passed. Where they came from, Gareth could only guess at. Somewhere to the east was his best theory, but who really knew? One thing he didn't need to guess at was that the D.E.L. certainly had plans for what was rapidly growing into an impressive army, and if King Richard didn't pull his head out of his arse and start paying attention to his border lands, they were all going to be in deep, deep trouble.

* * *

The other scouts had turned back, but Mildred, being young and possessed of a recklessness that her mother had long warned her would get her killed, had decided to press on. Their orders had been to survey the perimeter only, but Mildred had never been too good at following orders. The tower was surrounded by sheer cliffs on both sides, but the jagged rocks offered plenty of hand-holds and she'd managed to scale the walls under the dark of night without drawing attention. Groups of the goblin-men came and went with some regularity, crossing over a rickety-looking wooden bridge built over the remnants of a stone one that had clearly crumbled away long ago, and occasionally one of those horrid spiders would crawl up from the cavernous trench cutting across the front of tower.

This might have been a bad idea, she thought, but in for a penny... Mildred hoisted herself into a small, narrow window high up the side of the tower, furtively glancing back and forth through the hallway on the other side of it for anyone who might raise the alarm. So far, so good. Keeping her dagger out in one hand, she moved silently onward, determined to find out who was running this joint.

Slipping around a corner, then another, she could hear the chatter of distant voices echoing from what sounded like some distance below her. Beyond the next turn was a walkway about six feet wide bordered along one side by rusty and filthy cells, the first several of which contained nothing but old bones which she thought might be human, but wasn't sure. On the other side was a sheer drop down into a hall several stories below, which contained the crowd she'd heard earlier. Mildred threw herself flat on her stomach and scooted toward the edge, peering over for a better look. She had to clamp her hand over her mouth to muffle the shout that wanted to escape. _There's thousands of them! Thousands! Oh shit_! Pulling herself back and trying to reign in her panicked breathing, she pushed herself back against one of the prison cells. A good thing another hand clamped over her mouth, then, because she absolutely shouted when someone spoke into her ear from behind.

“Now what the hell are you doing here? You don't look much like a goblin, my girl.”

* * *

Leofwine paced back and forth just outside the gates of Minas Tirith. The rest of the scouts had returned hours ago, including those he'd sent out before the spiders had attacked.

“She might have just gotten turned the wrong way, Leo.”

“Mildred might be young, my Queen, but she's never gotten lost a day in her life. She's my best scout. No, she's either been captured or injured, or...”

Or killed, Roberta knew he was thinking but could not say out loud. “We can continue to wait for her, but not indefinitely. The numbers of those goblin men moving toward that tower are troublesome, and we don't know how many might already be in there. If the other scouts' reports are accurate, the tower is wedged into the mountainside and only accessible by a single bridge over a chasm of some sort. That doesn't leave us many options beyond a frontal assault, and even with superior numbers, that would be a massive gamble. They could set archers above and pick off our soldiers as they tried to cross, or just break the bridge entirely. I don't like this, Leo, I don't like anything about it.”

“I know, Bobbie. I don't either.”

Roberta perched on a low stone wall that bordered the road into the city and watched Leofwine continue pacing. Richard had remained inside, trying to help the soldiers prepare for what may lay ahead. There was a anxiety in the air that was affecting all of them. They'd all been through plenty of skirmishes in the last two years, but this felt very different. Roberta glanced back over her shoulder, wondering where that Elladan had gotten off to, but her musing was interrupted by their lost scout suddenly bursting out of the trees, running as though chased by the devil himself and shouting something unintelligible.

Leofwine rushed up to Mildred, catching her by the shoulders as she babbled in a rush. “Calm down, my girl! Start over, I didn't understand a word you said.”

Mildred nearly doubled over, puffing and trying to catch her breath, red in the face. “The D.E.L. M'lord... He's got... a whole bloody army.... thousands of them! And I saw...” Mildred turned aside, stumbling over to Roberta's wall and plopping down beside her, gulping air. Roberta gave the girl a pat on the back and rubbed her shoulders a bit. After a few minutes, she seemed to calm down a bit, or at least was able to breath. “My queen, I.... thank you. But I have news that the King will not like one bit, I'm afraid.”

Roberta looked across at Leofwine. “Should we fetch him, or hear it first ourselves?”

“Best hear it first, I think. He can be a bit... sensitive.”

Roberta scowled. “He's not _that_ fragile, Leo.”

“Bobbie...” Leofwine hesitated a moment. “He cries at least once a week... Wait, no, don't look at me like that, I'm not so judgmental as some about such things, and I do understand it's just his way of dealing with things, but it's not good for the soldiers' morale to see him in that state.”

“He's not weak, Leo, he's just... different, that's all. He might cry, but he doesn't run away anymore, I've seen him cry and fight at the same damned time. He can't really help it, I don't think, but it certainly doesn't stop him from doing what he needs to do. And as for the soldiers, they can bloody well get over it.”

Mildred hunched down where she sat on the wall and Roberta remembered that the girl was, in fact, still there. Roberta slid off the wall to stand, turning to look at her. “My apologies, scout, this is not the time for such arguments.” Roberta shot Leofwine a pointed look. “Just tell us what you saw.”

“The King's old personal guard, my Queen, and that Sid fellow who followed him. The D.E.L. captured them, I'm afraid, and locked them up. Don't know what's planned for them, I'm afraid. Bit odd they're still alive, all considered...”

Roberta bit at her lip, troubled to say the least. “Did you see Madalena?”

“No, your highness, just a lot of those goblin men, and Gareth and Sid. But Gareth said she's there, and the D.E.L. too. They're the ones gathering up all these creatures, and they intend to take over your kingdom, and probably everyone else's sooner or later!”

Roberta glanced back at Leofwine. “I think we might need a bigger army, Leo...”

* * *

“I really just don't think a bigger army is going to fix this. You said yourself the only way in is some dinky little bridge, or by climbing up a cliff and sneaking in through a window. How would we even get an army _in_?”

Leofwine grit his teeth and Roberta was no less exasperated with Richard at the moment. They both wanted to return home immediately, leaving a few scouts in the area with the speaking stone to keep an eye on things, and regroup before returning from a position of greater strength. “We find a way to draw them out, my King. Issue a challenge, perhaps. Someone calling himself the 'Dark Evil Lord' is bound to be vain.”

“But _how_? The D.E.L. is a new one I admit, but I _know_ Madalena. I know how her twisted little mind works. She doesn't like a fair fight, she'll find some way to make us do what she wants. And if we go back home and spend weeks or months trying to beg help off of every other kingdom – which they _won't_ give us by the way, because, guess what, they won't think this is their problem! – then Gareth and Sid will probably be dead by the time we get back. And I know I'm the only one who cares about Gareth but I'm not willing to just abandon him like that. He's still my friend!”

“Richard, attacking them now, with the small number of men we currently possess, would be absolute suicide. You heard Mildred, there are thousands of those goblins packed in there, and God knows where those spiders are even coming from, although it sounds like they are somehow beneath the tower.”

Richard looked at Roberta, and looked at Leofwine, and crossed his arms, leaning back. Roberta huffed and threw her arms in the air, stomping away a couple yards as she recognized the precise moment when Richard was digging his heels in over the subject. “This is a complete disaster, I really just don't know what–“

“I don't know 'what' either, Bobbie, to be quite honest! What do you expect me to do? I can't pull a magic solution out of my arse, and throwing a bigger army at the problem isn't going to get us into that damned tower, and Gareth and Sid are probably running out of time as we sit here arguing!” Richard huffed and flopped down to the flagstones, leaning against the wall behind him, his fit of temper spent already. “Oh, I'm sorry Bobbie. I didn't mean it. I'm just... I've known Gareth since I was six years old. I know you don't approve of him, but I hate the thought of...” Richard leaned his forehead against his knees, trying to push back the rising despair that was eating at the edges of his mind. He always hated crying in front of Leofwine and felt twice as wretched as he would have otherwise. “I don't want him to die, Bobbie, I just don't know how to get him out of there.”

Roberta's own anger bled out of her at his apology and she sat down beside him. “I'm sorry, pup-pup, I know this is difficult. But Gareth made the choice to pursue Madalena, and Sid chose to follow him. You can't blame yourself for his situation. And there is more at stake here than two lives.”

“You think I don't know that!? But that one rickety bridge isn't going to get us in there with an army of two hundred or ten thousand! Why does everyone always think armies are the solution to every problem, anyway? They only ever make everything _worse_. If we could just get Gareth and Sid out of there first...”

Roberta heard Leofwine make a small noise of disapproval and walk away, but she said nothing to stop him. Let him go, she decided, and deal with him once she and Richard had sorted things out between themselves. Roberta sighed and pulled Richard's head onto her shoulder, trying to cuddle him a bit until he could calm himself enough to discuss the matter reasonably. She may not care much for Gareth herself, but she wasn't stupid and she fully recognized what the man meant to Richard.

“There is another way into Minas Morgul, although it is rather circuitous and somewhat difficult.”

Roberta and Richard both looked up to find Elladan standing over them, though when he'd arrived, precisely, neither of them could say. Roberta stood, and Richard followed, trying to wipe away his tears although there was no hope that the elf had not already seen them. “I wondered when you'd show up again.”

“I've been off doing a bit of scouting of my own, actually. And I am truly sorry to hear that they have your friends, although there is still some hope that they might be recovered, do not despair, dear king. You are indeed correct about one thing – no ordinary army has ever breached that fortress, nor shall it. The powers that once inhabited it are long gone, but even the memory of them is a great evil which lingers over it and the vale beyond. It may well be what attracted its current inhabitants, pale shadow of what came before them though they be. I believe a certain measure of, shall we say, _finesse_, will be required here. That's not to say that an army is of no use. They do make for quite a nice distraction at times. That is another tale I may one day have an opportunity to tell you, in fact.”

Richard smiled despite himself. “You know, if I ever need a new bard, you're hired. You'd never run out of stories.”

Elladan gave his customary bow. “That might be fun, actually. It has been quite a long time since I had an audience. But that will have to wait until after we have dealt with the problem at hand.”

* * *

“I still think this is a terrible idea, my Queen. We should go back for reinforcements. I'm sorry your husband's friends are in trouble but we can't base our decisions on the needs of two individuals over the good of the whole kingdom, you have to realize that.”

Roberta shook her head, continuing to help the scouts and a few of the soldiers prepare. “I do realize that. And this isn't about Gareth and Sid, either, although I disagree that they aren't worth trying to save. Anyway, we've been over this a dozen times in the last two days, Leo. I know you don't think much of Richard's intelligence – no you really don't, don't try to deny it – but he's not actually stupid and sometimes Richard's instincts are spot-on. And after thinking it over I also have to agree with Elladan–“

“We don't even know this... whatever he is! There's no such thing as _elves_, that's for damned sure, that's a children's tale. He's a stranger, Bobbie. How can you just trust him like this? You've known me since you were a hardly more than a baby, have I ever steered you wrong?”

Roberta grit her teeth, trying to control her temper. She gripped her knight's shoulders, squeezing them as she spoke. “Leofwine, my dear Leofwine, you have been an uncle to me most of my life and I love you more than you know, but this is not about trust, nor is it about your record of success on the battlefield, which is, of course, impeccable. But Elladan, who or whatever he is, has lived in this region and knows it very well. He can get us into this Minas Morgul by a secret path, and he knows its passageways within as well. If we are careful and stealthy, we can remove Gareth and Sid, and get to Madalena and her nasty little master as well, without engaging that horde of goblin men in a futile frontal assault. Because Elladan is also right about one thing – there is no way to just go trumpeting in with an army without it ending up an absolute slaughter. I will not spend the blood of our knights and soldiers fruitlessly, I owe them more than that, and I owe their families better as well.”

Leofwine stared down at Roberta, several expressions flitting over his face. The overall effect made him look a bit constipated, quite frankly, and Roberta had to struggle not laugh at him, which would not help this situation “Bobbie... I.... You can't just go in there! What will happen to you? Stay behind, and let me go in with the soldiers.”

Roberta hesitated a moment, then pulled Leofwine into a tight hug before stepping back. “Quite a few of your soldiers are coming too, Leo, we won't be alone. But Richard and I need to do this. Richard knows Madalena is a problem he created and he knows it is his responsibility to stop her from causing more harm. And I need to support him. I ran away from him once when he needed me, and I regret it deeply to this day. My place is by his side.”

Leofwine stared down at her, suddenly looking old for the first time since she'd ever known him. “Alright, Bobbie. But I will be coming with you, whether you wish it or not. You'll have to tie me up if you want me left behind.”

“Disobey your queen, would you?” Roberta laughed, feeling better now than she had in days. “I wouldn't have it any other way, my friend.”

* * *

“Ugh! You _would _just have bring us through a place called 'The Spider's Cleft' wouldn't you?” Richard flicked the end of Anduril, slinging green ichor from the end of it after yanking it back out of the abdomen of yet another overly aggressive arachnid. “Oooh, I wonder why it's called tha-at? Maybe because it's full of giant _SPIDERS_! Why can't they be more like the ones back in my castle who just hang around on strings all day eating flies? _They _don't bother anyone. They have _manners_!”

The spiders they were encountering with an alarming regularity in this web of tunnels through the side of the mountain weren't quite as large as the ones that apparently lived under their enemy's fortress, but they were nearly the size of a small sheep, and that was bad enough. Roberta grunted as she hacked a spider in half as it rushed out of a side tunnel. “Oh pup-pup, just stick the stupid things and keep moving. At least they don't seem very bright, do they? Practically just throw themselves on your blade, really.”

Elladan's laugh echoed around them from a few paces ahead. “Count yourselves lucky, friends. Their ancestors were much craftier, and much, _much _larger.”

Richard halted suddenly, pulling a face, and Roberta, right on cue, walked right into his back, grumbling in annoyance at him. “Stop doing that, Richard!” She gave him a gentle push to get him moving again.

Leofwine swore from behind them as two of the spiders dropped out of thick webbing at the ceiling. With the help of Mildred and a couple soldiers behind him, he managed to throw them off of his back and cut them up. “These beasts stink, on top of everything else. I suspect we'll be reeking of them for days after this. If we survive...”

“We're going to survive, Leo!” Roberta slashed at a spider that tried to leap on her husband's head, knocking it into the wall where it landed on the ground hissing at her like an overboiling kettle. She rolled her eyes and cut it cleanly in half.

Elladan's shout reached them from around a corner ahead. “We need to keep moving if we are going to reach the rear entrance of Minas Morgal at nightfall, my friends. I do apologize for the spiders, of course, but when I asked them if they would kindly allow us passage, they declined to honor my request. As you said, my king, they lack the good manners of proper spiders...”

* * *

Richard's mouth ran dry as he looked up at the tower laying at the end of the valley ahead of them. He'd lost his bearings in the spider tunnels, but it appeared that they'd gone right past the tower entirely around the north of it through the mountains, and come out into a narrow valley behind it. They'd clambered down the remnants of a ruin and turned back to the west to return to Minas Morgul from the rear. The tower seemed to pierce the sky like the point of a blade, poisoning it much the same as Richard had been what now felt like a lifetime ago. He rubbed at the fresh scar in his left elbow, and glanced at Roberta and Leofwine to his left. They did not look any more confident at the moment. “Elladan, are you really certain about this? Because to be quite honest, this whole place is_ really _giving me the creeps right now.”

“I am _certain_ of nothing, sire, nor should anyone be, but it remains our best chance of stealth, 'creeps' aside. No one passed into or out of this door as I watched, and I do not believe the current occupants know of its existence. It is well hidden at both ends. It leads directly into the upper levels. Not the very top, but the area where your friends are held is very close. This tower was built to keep watch on the lands behind us, many centuries ago, when a greater enemy once dwelled there. It fell to that enemy only after a siege lasting over two years. Its defenders had to be starved out. Hence why I said that no ordinary army would ever hope to breach it. I suggest the four of us go in first to find your captive friends and release them. We will use your little speaking-stones to call in the rest when they are needed.”

Richard chewed at his lip, weighing up their admittedly limited options. “We've had problems with the stones while we were in the forest, will they work through the tower?”

Elladan shrugged. “We can test them once we are inside, and come back out if they do not. I cannot say for certain. But we will be fairly close to one another, not miles apart with thick trees between us. Depending on how well guarded this Madalena and her master are, we may be able to deal with them on our own. I am not certain what the extent of this self-styled Dark Evil Lord's abilities are. Compared to what I have seen in past ages, he does not seem exceptionally dangerous, but I would not wish to go in overly confident while he is still an unknown quantity.”

“Hmph. I'm more concerned about old Mads, really. She's very devious, you know. Don't believe a word she says, I will tell you that much. Lie right to your face, she does. And stab you right in the back.” Richard knew that Gareth thought there was something salvageable in Madalena, still, but he'd never been so sure of it himself. He'd let his former guard leave on this quest unchallenged because he knew Gareth felt like he had to do this, and he'd finally come to understand what the nature of such obligations. That didn't mean he'd liked it. That definitely didn't mean he hadn't worried every single day since they'd last parted ways.

* * *

Elladan had been true to his word. The doorway was well hidden in the stone. Richard would have walked past it without seeing it if the elf had not stopped to open it. The soldiers and scouts tucked themselves under a deep overhanging outcropping of rock nearby while Leofwine, Elladan, Richard, and Roberta went into the tower.

They were climbing single-file up a dark, narrow staircase that wound back and forth up into the fortress, now. It all seemed too easy, though, and Richard's anxiety was growing by the minute. He'd taken the lead, and Roberta was directly behind him on the steps, keeping one hand on the stone wall for balance in the darkness, and the other on Richard's back, trying to reassure him in her own quiet way that he was not in this alone. Elladan was behind Roberta while Leofwine had insisted on guarding their rear. There were only high narrow windows along the stairwell which let in only the thinnest moonlight, and Richard had lost track of even his estimate of how many floors they'd climbed up. Mildred had given a fairly detailed description of the small portion of the fortress she'd seen, but she'd gone in directly through a small window at the northern side, and had not seen this passage. Elladan had assured him that the stairwell let out in the same hallway that Mildred's window had led into, though, and Richard was hoping his centuries-old memory of the fortress's layout was not faulty.

* * *

Richard pressed himself against the wall, a wave of vertigo threatening to send him careening over the edge of the walkway into the crowd of creatures below. He screwed his eyes shut, whispering to his companions. “Holy cow, Mildred wasn't exaggerating...”

Roberta pressed a hand against Richard's chest, pushing him more firmly against the wall behind him, recognizing the greenish tint in his face and trying to prevent him from tipping forward.“I know Richard. We need to be careful. I don't think they can see this walkway well, as it's so poorly lit, but I don't want to take any chances. If they haven't been moved, Gareth and Sid should be just ahead.” She shifted so she could look up at her husband, who was swallowing heavily against a bout of nausea. She rubbed at his chest for a minute until he settled, gathering himself again. “We're going to get through this, pup-pup.”

Richard nodded and turned, sliding along the wall and past the empty cells, praying they were not too late.

* * *

“King Richard!?”

“Shh! Is Gareth nearby, Sid?”

“Yeah, I'm over here. Holy shit, Richard is that really you?”

“Yes! Now shut up, both of you!”

It was a matter of just a few minutes for Elladan to pick the locks on both cells. Sid stumbled out of his giddily and Leofwine managed to grab the back of his now quite filthy tunic just in time to keep him from tumbling over to his death. “Sorry! Been a while since I've had a chance to stretch my legs, you know?”

Gareth, too, stumbled as he emerged from his long captivity, landing heavily in Richard's arms. Richard hugged him tightly, not caring in the least that Gareth predictably went stiff as a board. “It's good to see you, old friend.”

“Right, right, now quit blubbering, Richard, we need to get the hell out of here before your ex and her new loverboy find us.”

Richard stepped away slowly, hesitant to let go of Gareth. Gareth ignored the unshed tears shining in Richard's eyes and slid along the wall toward the direction his rescuers had come from. Richard grabbed his arm before he could get too far. “Come with us, Gareth. We're not leaving yet, we have to stop Madalena now, if we can. Can you lead us to her without tipping off that rabble beneath us?”

Gareth froze, his mouth slack with confusion. “What? You really want to – Oh, no. No, no,_ no_. You're not up to it, Richard, I know you. There's like...” Gareth paused, counting on his fingers as he surveyed the group. “..six of us here. And they took mine and Sid's gear when they chucked us in these cages. Do you know what she can do, now? She waves that l'il stick of hers and – _wham_ – you're hanging upside down in the air like plucked chicken carcass. We need to _leave_.”

Richard sighed, cupping the side of Gareth's face and running a thumb over his cheek. Gareth scowled. “Sire, I know I told you 'bout that face-touching thing.”

Richard pulled his hand away, shrugging. “Things have changed while you were gone, Gareth. I'm not running from my problems anymore. And I'm not running from Madalena. She wouldn't even be here if I hadn't kidnapped her that time and set her on this frankly stupid path. Still probably would have broken up with Galavant, after she got bored of him, but she'd also still be an angry peasant woman in that village, probably married to a butcher or something and doing nothing more devious than shortchanging his customers and cheating on him with the village idiot. No, I made this mess, I need to clean it up. Now, before she can really cause harm to my kingdom.”

“Huh. Really? You're... not the man I knew, Richard. Suppose that might've been some of the more shit advice I gave you when I told you to just go grab some wench to marry. Didn't think you'd take it _that _literally though.”

“Yes, Gareth, it was terrible advice I never should have listened to, but I can't change that now. Will you come help us, or not?”

Gareth slumped against the edge of the cell door, rubbing at a sore spot in his chest. Richard looked over him now, really looked over him, and it pained him to see his old friend's condition. Gareth had lost a great deal of weight, had several new scars, a host of bruises, and there was something behind his eyes that Richard wished he could take away. “You don't have to, Gareth. If you want to leave, there is a secret way out. We have several scouts and soldiers waiting outside, you can wait with them, if you like.”

Gareth exhaled sharply, not quite a laugh nor a sigh. Some internal battle played out over his features as he looked out over the crowd of monsters below, and at Richard, at Richard's companions, and then made a quick study of his own feet. He shook his head when looked up again, and Richard was ready to bid him good luck and good parting. “No, Richard, I can't leave yet either. Madalena and me... we got unfinished business. Might get killed, but if you ain't running, I sure as hell can't. Would just be embarrassing, really...” Gareth pushed himself upright, somewhat shakily, but with determination, looking over Richard's shoulder. “C'mon Sid, time for round two.”

“What!? You've got to be kidding, we'd need an army to take on this lot!” Sid stepped one way, then back, nearly tripping over Elladan's feet as he fretted. “Oh, fine, alright... I wish Galavant were here.”

Gareth scowled at Sid. “Oh shut up about Galavant already, I keep tellin' you, you don't need him no more!”

* * *

Richard paused outside the massive door, his hand upon it, ready to push it open. The upper portions of the keep were remarkably empty and unguarded. So confident was the D.E.L., it seemed, that beyond the army he kept on the ground floor, he felt unassailable. Again, Richard felt it had all been too easy, that there was some other shoe waiting to drop and leave a footprint on his head. Richard withdrew his hand and stepped back, trying not let panic overtake him while his five companions stood behind him, waiting for him to make the first move.

Roberta leaned up to whisper to him. “If you think we need more time or more people, pup-pup, we can go back down and get the crystal out and call for the soldiers.”

Richard thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, there's only two people beyond this door, and six of us. If this sorcery Madalena and her master have can kill the six of us, then surely it can kill the fifty we left behind just as easily. And someone must live to take a warning back to the seven kingdoms if we cannot complete this task.” Richard hesitated, turning to Leofwine at last. “I want you guarding this door, Leofwine, the last thing we need is to be taken unaware by any of those blasted goblins.”

“You have my word, my king, no one will pass this door while I yet live.”

Richard reached back and grasped Roberta's hand in his left, and pushed the door open with his right, stepping into the room beyond.

* * *

It was a high hall, not massive, but wide, almost a perfect square. Beneath a large expanse of windows at the far end was what could only be called a throne, and beside it, another smaller throne. The Dark Evil Lord sat upon the larger of the two, bedecked in rich silks and layers of rings, necklaces, and the ugliest, gaudiest damned crown Richard had ever laid eyes on, and he had owned some pretty ostentatious crowns in his time.

“Oh, look, darling, we have company!” Madalena leaned forward for a better look, shrieking laughter, slapping the armrest of her chair. “Oh what a treat! Dear little Dickey has come for a visit! Oh, and he's brought some little friends to play, too! Come out, children, don't hide behind Dickey! I assure you, he's quite worthless as a shield...”

The D.E.L. leaned across a small table between their chairs, hooking a few grapes in his fingers and popping them into his mouth. “Well, show them in dear, musn't be rude after all!”

Madalena stood and crooked one finger as though beckoning a child to give them a treat. Richard just barely managed not to embarrass himself with a scream when an invisible hook grabbed him at the chest and hauled him across the room. His landing was less than graceful, but he managed to scrape himself up off the floor immediately, unsheathing Anduril in the same movement. He heard the rest of his companions running up behind him.

Madalena's attention was momentarily distracted from Richard as she laid eyes on Gareth. “Oh, you let the rat out of his cage, oh dear, dear, how naughty!”

Gareth scowled at his former lover. “Madalena, you need to stop this! Those beasts downstairs are unnatural, and you know it! And really, giant _spiders?_ This is what you've stooped to?”

The D.E.L. Pulled a wand from his sleeve and, without bothering to stand, whipped it in a gesture toward Gareth. “That's quite enough slander about my pets, sweetheart.”

Gareth grasped at his throat as no sound came out despite his attempts at further shouting. Sid rushed to his side but could do nothing.

Richard took advantage of the redirected attention to look about the room. Roberta stood just behind him, but Elladan had disappeared. Richard hoped the elf had some trick up his sleeve, or this could all go very badly very quickly. Ignoring the D.E.L. while he taunted Gareth, Richard focused Madalena, on the cruel amusement in her expression, the dead eyes like tunnels leading nowhere. He desperately searched through every memory he had of his interactions with her for some chink in her armor, some weakness he could exploit, some desire he could use. He'd grabbed this woman off the street, literally, and marched her down a wedding aisle, years ago. In the end, she'd gone along with it, despite Galavant's attempt at rescuing her, choosing “wealth and power” over love. He'd spent the entire year of their marriage foolishly, _stupidly_, trying to get this woman to love him. Exotic clothing, expensive jewelry, fancy cuisine, an invasion of a neighboring kingdom, for pity's sake! Nothing meant anything to her. Madalena had been forced to eat a beloved pet goat as a child and it seemed as though she had never forgiven the world for it, and now would make everyone suffer with her. _I never should have listened to Gareth. I never should have kidnapped her. This is all _my_ fault. All of it_. Richard tried to blink back the tears in his eyes but it was useless. He'd ruined everything with one supremely stupid and wicked decision. He could blame Gareth, but in the end, it was his actions, not Gareth's. He could have told Gareth to sod off, that he was the king and could do as he wished, it's not like anyone could have forced his hand. Not like he'd forced Madalena's hand, and so many others.

The D.E.L. currently had both Gareth and Sid suspended in the air, flailing like fish hooked on the end of a line. Richard knew he couldn't do anything about that. Maybe he couldn't do anything about, well, _anything, _'One True King' or no. Maybe this was all just too broken to fix, but he decided he had to do one last thing before he died. Richard reached back to give Roberta's hand a squeeze, and stepped forward, Anduril still gripped in his hand, but pointed toward the floor.

“Madalena, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault, I never should have kidnapped you.”

Madalena's laughter at the torture being enacted on her former lover died a sudden death and she turned to her ex-husband, eyes wide. “What did you just say?”

“I said, I'm sorry, Madalena.”

A shadow of something passed over her eyes, but was gone again so quickly Richard thought he might have imagined it. “I see you are still a complete fool, Richard. Maybe you finally grew a pair of balls in the last few years but you certainly haven't grown a brain.”

Madalena pulled a wand of her own from a pocket and brought it down in an arc. A flash of energy cracked across the space separating the witch from the king. Richard brought his sword up to parry the blow on instinct, and to shock of everyone in the room, the bolt rebounded off the blade. Madalena shrieked as the recoil sent her flying backward. Rolling up off the floor, she screamed, sending more bolts at Richard, who was pushed further back across the room as he fended off the blows, keeping Roberta behind him as the magic ricocheted wildly about the room.

Somewhere off to the side, Sid screamed as a bolt hitting nearby disrupted the D.E.L.'s concentration and sent him tumbling to the ground like a sack of hammers. Gareth landed with a hard thump beside him, and probably would have cursed if he'd not still been rendered mute.

Richard was now literally backed into a corner, Roberta pressed behind his taller frame with nowhere else to go. Madalena was now in an absolute frothing rage, her face red and contorted, her shouts wordless but full of hatred. The Hero Sword could deflect the magic, but Richard was rapidly growing tired under the unwavering onslaught. _Why did I come here? What did I think I could accomplish? We're all going to die, and all this suffering will be my fault, again!_

* * *

Gareth screamed soundlessly, and rushed forward like a raging bull. Sid was curled over on himself on the ground clutching his head somewhere behind him and he did not know for certain if his companion was alive or dead. _I hate you_, he screamed at the D.E.L., though not even a whisper emerged. _I hate you,_ he screamed, _you took her from me. I hate you, you ruined her. I hate you, you made her like you!_

The enemy before him stood up, shaken by the misdirected blow of his pupil, but not for long. He swept the wand diagonally across the air in front of him, and Gareth felt a wall of unseen energy slam into him like a giant fist, every bone in his body reverberating with the blow. Blood gushed from his nose as he rolled up from the floor, the world tilting around him as his head swam.

“She doesn't want you, you disgusting little man! What do you have to offer, anyway? You have no power, no wealth, nothing at all! She's already forgotten you! Too busy taking her rage out on a more worthy foe. Oh, that's funny, isn't it? The silly king with his little toy sword is worth more of her time than you! Well, this little party has been fun, but it's making a mess of my throne room and I think it's time to take out the rubbish!”

Gareth bared his teeth at the D.E.L., dragging himself to his feet while trying not to vomit on them. _Maybe I can't save her, _he thought,_ but I sure as hell am gonna stop _you_, ya ugly git_.

The D.E.L. laughed in his face as Gareth charged forward, then crumpled to the ground like an abandoned puppet, a long dagger with an ivory-colored grip jutting out of his back. The strange man who'd arrived with King Richard – Elladan, Gareth had heard him called – bowed to Gareth, before retrieving the weapon and pulling Gareth to his feet.

* * *

Madalena could not stop. She was nearly exhausted at this point, but she could also see Richard's focus slipping as well. If it came down to a battle of wills, she would not lose. Anyone who dared stand in her way would pay for it. She would never bow to another again. She would never go hungry again. She would never wear rags again. She would never listen to the mockery of the rich and powerful again, because she would be richer and more power than all of them, and if she had to barter her soul to do it, then so be it! This idiot had ordered his goons to drag her off the street in bloody broad daylight, all because his stupid guard told him he was too old to be a king without a queen, and for what? The look of it? To _breed _with? What was she, a damned barn animal? So maybe she hadn't really cared about Galavant all that much, but it didn't matter! That wasn't the point! He'd pay for it, they'd both pay for it. “I'm sorry,” he'd said. Sorry? _Sorry_? What use was sorry?

_I'm sorry, darling, but we've run out of everything else! There's nothing left and you know the harvest was bad this year, we haven't even got anything to sell. We can't afford to feed Jenny anymore, we can't even afford to feed ourselves. If you just leave her tied up to starve, it won't do any good for her or us, best to give her as swift and painless an end as possible, I'm afraid there's just no other choice! She's yours, it's your responsibility. You've done it before with the sheep, you know what to do. Now be a big girl and just remember we will all live through through this winter because of your sacrifice._

“Your sacrifice.” She'd never sacrifice anything again. She'd never give away anything again.

So why did she feel so empty?

* * *

Gareth and Madalena tumbled to the floor as he tackled her from behind, trying wrestle the wand out of her hand. “Stop it, Mads! Just stop it! Your precious D.E.L. is dead! It's all over!”

Madalena shrieked as the wand went tumbling out of her hand, rolling across the floor to where Richard was slumped against the wall, holding onto Roberta for dear life and out of breath. Gareth grabbed her wrists, pinning her, but only for a moment before she managed to knee him the stomach and pull one arm free. Gareth yanked her back, determined not to let her slip free. “I didn't want to hurt you, ya know, I just wanted to end this... this madness. Didn't have to do this, Madalena. Ya didn't have to do this, we could have gone somewhere else, been plenty horrible without taking up with monsters and devils!”

Gareth grunted as he felt a sharp pain pierce his side. Madalena had made her choice plain. He pulled her off balance again, grasping her other hand as he felt the hot blood pouring out of his flank and his ears were filled with more of her inhuman shrieking. He hadn't remembered her being this strong, when had she gotten so strong? Blackness ate at the edge of his vision. Moving on instinct, he forced her hand to turn, got her pinned beneath him, and pushed downward with what strength he had left forcing the blade now covered in his own blood through her heart. “I'm so sorry, love, but ya just wouldn't stop!”

Madalena's mouth opened in a soft, surprised 'o' as she looked up at him, then she went still.

* * *

Richard managed to regain some of his breath and a bit of his equilibrium. He was soaked through with sweat and felt shaky and weak and suddenly wished he'd brought more water. Roberta helped him to his feet and ran her hands over him for a moment, checking for any injury, then she rushed over to where Elladan was crouched over a hopefully only unconscious Sid.

Gareth was crouched over Madalena a few feet away. “Gareth?” There was no response. Richard crossed the gap between them and crouched down beside his oldest friend. “Gare...” Richard leaned over to look at him. Gareth's face was red, his eyes screwed shut and his mouth tight, like he was trying to hold in tears, but that was a ridiculous thought. Gareth never cries. He just doesn't. Richard reached out, his hand hovering just over Gareth's shoulder.

“Don't. Just, _don't_, Richard.”

Richard rolled back on his heels, withdrawing slightly to give Gareth space, and noticed the growing patch of red soaking Gareth's shirt. Richard pulled out his waterskin and a handkerchief, wetting it. Another pouch at his belt held a small stash of dried athelas, which he wrapped up in the wet cloth. He sat behind Gareth and pulled his friend's tunic up as gently as he could, and pressed the cloth firmly into the wound, holding it in place. Gareth hissed slightly, but made no other response. Richard tried to think of something to say, something to comfort him with, but there were no words for this. Richard could stop the bleeding at his side, but other wounds were simply too deep for him to reach so easily.

There was still the matter of the army beneath them, who were bound to discover that their leaders were no more soon, but Richard couldn't muster up the will to care about them at the moment. They would have to clean out the goblins and spiders, eventually, he supposed, but it could wait for another day. The head had been cut from the serpent, and that was enough for now.


	6. Chapter 6

Richard sat on the bench at the end of the pier, idly kicking his heels against it as he looked out over the white city below and the forest beyond it. He could hear Tad Cooper snoring where the dragon napped behind him. Gareth and Sid were resting in what Elladan had called the Houses of Healing. Richard had recognized the place, one tier down, from the dream he'd had, but the revelation was of little interest to him at the moment. Richard remembered the first victory over Madalena. He'd put an end to Wormwood, discovered that he was the One True King, saved Tad Cooper, and ridden off high on his fresh success to go find Roberta and ask her to marry him. Happily ever after, he'd said, just like the stories. Just like his friend, the renowned hero Galavant and his soon-to-be-wife, Isabella. He'd wanted to be like Galavant, and he'd done it! Everything had seemed so simple, then. They'd beaten the baddies, won the day, and everything had seemed so neatly tied up.

Except it hadn't been, not really. Madalena had run off to seek new ways to be even nastier, and Gareth had chased her. Richard had shrugged it off, putting it mostly out of his mind, other than worrying over an absent friend in the quiet hours of the night. Maybe he shouldn't have been so easily satisfied, so quickly complacent. He should have done something about Madalena sooner. Of course, he never should have had anything to do with Madalena at all, and that was the real problem.

“Budge over, darling.”

Richard looked up at his wife, and slid to one side to let her sit and wrap an arm around him. He let her pull him down to rest his forehead against her own, to press a kiss to his temple and rub at his back, to cover him with her love as she always did, and to feel utterly wretched and undeserving of it. “I really screwed everything up, Bobbie.”

“What? No, Richard, we stopped them! I mean, there's still the goblin men to deal with, but with nobody to tell them what to do, Elladan says they'll probably go back to beating the crap out of each other and be too distracted to bother the merchants much anymore. We can head home once Gareth and Sid are healed enough to travel and come back later to clear them out. That was a nasty bump to Sid's head but Leofwine says he's seen soldiers bounce back from worse, and Gareth will be alright if he stops being stubborn and rests like he's been told.”

Richard sighed, shaking his head. “I didn't mean that, Bobbie. Yes, we managed to head off a war, but it never should have come this far to begin with. This is all my fault. If I hadn't kidnapped Madalena... _I _did this to her, Bobbie. And I dragged poor Gare-bear right into the middle of it.”

“As I recall, Richard, it was Gareth who told you to marry Madalena to begin with. This isn't _all _your fault.”

“Enough of it is. I can't blame everything on Gareth, Bobbie, not anymore. I've screwed up nearly everything I've ever done, from the time I was a boy. I don't know why I'm like this, I just am! And that elf thinks I'm some sort of real king, like that friend of his from a thousand years ago that I dreamed about. I'm not, though, am I? I'll never be that... _dignified_, for one thing. I'm just too damned incompetent to do it, Bobbie, I can't fix my own mistakes, much less glue a broken kingdom back together! Maybe I should find some third cousin to pass this stupid sword off to and go herd sheep or something...” Richard slumped forward, burying his face in his hands as Roberta combed her fingers through his hair.

“Come on, pup-pup, let's go inside. I know things might seem that way, but it's not all that bad, I promise. You've done good work these past two years, you just can't see that right now, but I promise you, you've done more than you realize. In any case, Madalena made her own choices, too, she wasn't some helpless puppet. She had plenty of chances to change her ways, and she didn't. You shouldn't have kidnapped her, but in the end, that 'd'dew' business was her own decision, Richard, not yours.”

* * *

The trip back home was uneventful, at least. Richard had decided to walk with Leofwine and his soldiers while Roberta went ahead on Tad Cooper with Sid and Gareth holding on for dear life behind her.

At their departure, he'd told Elladan he didn't think he was cut out to be the heir of this King Elessar and tried to give the sword to him and tell him to seek out a better king to wield it. Elladan had pressed the sword back into his hands, that slightly infuriating half-smile on his face. “You'll grow into it,” he'd said. “You're nearly there already.” Richard didn't even half believe him, but he'd had no stomach to argue over it at the time. “I would only ask that you promise to return here when you are ready, but do not wait too long.” Richard had, despite himself, promised the elf that he would, but he was also quite certain he'd never be ready to sit on the winged throne in that lofty tower. It was all just too much, too big, too heavy...

“Penny for your thoughts, my king?”

Richard glanced up at Leofwine, who was riding beside him while Richard walked. The knight had offered his horse when they left Minas Tirith, and Richard had declined. The soldiers who had been sent south with their half-orc prisoners had returned and joined them, and he could have demanded any of the horses he'd liked by rights, but Richard was in no mood to ride, especially at another's expense. The mindless motion of walking soothed him, maybe, and he felt perhaps he'd spent too much of his life relying on comforts he hadn't earned. “They aren't worth the cost, Leofwine. Keep your penny.”

Leofwine laughed softly above him. “The queen did warn me you'd probably sulk the entire way home.”

“I'm not sulking, I'm _thinking_. There's a difference, alright?”

“Thinking thoughts not worth even a penny, hmm? Is that what has put such a sour expression on you?”

“Oh, just leave me alone!”

Leofwine pulled a flask from his saddlebag and took a mouthful from it before passing it down to the king. “Don't drink too much or I'll have to put you on a horse whether you like it or not.”

Richard snatched it from his hand, gulping down a generous volume in a fit of pique. A few minutes later, he was half asleep on the back of Leofwine's bay charger while the old knight held him upright from behind.

* * *

It had been a month and a half since they'd returned from their trip to the east, and Roberta was beginning to worry for her husband's state of mind. He spent most of his time in their private rooms, playing with little Pearl and turning away nine requests for an audience out of every ten, leaving her to deal with matters of court without him, which frankly she was beginning to resent somewhat. She tried to distract him, but it was difficult to keep his attention on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. She'd left him alone at first, feeling like he'd earned a bit of time to himself (as had she), but as time wore on it felt less like he was taking a bit of a holiday to recuperate, and more and more like he was retreating into some hidden place inside himself that she could not access.

She'd been spending more time training the squires and soldiers with Leofwine lately, if for nothing else than to blow off a bit of steam that she had no other fruitful outlet for at the moment. They'd put the youngest ones through an intense session this morning and were heading back to the knights' barracks to put up their equipment.

“I don't know what to do, Leo. I feel shut out, and it's all I can do to bite my tongue and not shout at him. It wouldn't do any good if I did, I'm certain. I know he's hurting, I just don't quite know why or what to do about it. I know he blames himself for Madalena, and I've told him a hundred times that he did not choose that 'd'dew' nonsense for her, but nothing gets through. He's just about convinced himself to throw in the towel entirely and go be a shepherd somewhere, he keeps babbling on about it when he bothers to speak at all. I'm not sure where the interest in sheep came from all of a sudden, either, he never cared much about them before.”

“He doesn't care about them now, Bobbie, it's just something for him to think about that isn't what he can't otherwise stop thinking about.”

“But he was doing so well before all of this! I really thought he was settling into this role quite well, despite a few bumps here and there. I just don't understand how one stupid mistake in his past could suddenly come back and ruin everything all of a sudden, it's not like he didn't already know Madalena was off somewhere causing trouble.” Roberta yanked the leather hauberk off without undoing all of the straps, pulling it off with force and throwing it onto a table nearby for some squire to deal with later. “Oh, damn that Madalena, even when she's _dead_, she still manages to hurt him, I could kill her all over again myself! Whatever he did wrong, he's suffered for it more than enough as it is! Why does he keep punishing himself? It just makes no sense, Leo.”

“I suppose it wouldn't make much sense to anyone outside of it. We all do things we aren't proud of, though, it's part of being human.”

“Well yes, we all make mistakes. What matters is that you don't repeat them. I've told him that as well, and he seems to understand it at the time, but then he's back right where he was an hour later.”

“What do you do, Bobbie, when you've done something wrong?”

“Well, I apologize for it, try to mend it if I can, and resolve not to do it again. Isn't that what most people do?”

“It's what most ordinary folk do, if they have any decency in them at all. It's not necessarily what royalty do, though. I think perhaps Richard simply has never had to deal with the consequences of his mistakes so directly, before. In the past few years, he's grown far more aware that what he does actually matters, Bobbie, and that other people are _people_.”

“'People are people?' That sort of goes without saying, doesn't it? I keep telling you Richard isn't actually stupid, Leo, even if he does have some gaps in his knowledge of the world.”

“Of course he knows it, and knew it, intellectually at least, and I didn't say he was stupid. It's about perspective, Bobbie. Your parents had their faults, but they mostly meant well, and they raised you to care about others. From what I've seen and been told, Richard was left by his parents in the hands of a nurse who let him do nothing for himself, and later with that guard of his who might have been far less soft with him, but still shielded him from nearly everything. Other people were always either servants or rivals, not equals. That sort of thing is bound to go to a child's head. He's lucky, in a way, that his inner nature is essentially gentle. He could have been far worse a tyrant than he was. He's also unlucky for the same reason, as a conscience can be a heavy burden.”

Roberta finished putting up her gear, less violently. “I know you're right, Leo, but that doesn't make any of this easier. I can't just kiss him until he forgets this like most of his worries. It's not going away.”

“Nor should it, Bobbie. He did a terrible thing to Madalena, and it went ill for him as well as for her, and ultimately for us all. And yes, what she eventually did with the D.E.L. was absolutely her own choice and not his fault in the least, but that doesn't erase the original error. That's the irony of wanting to be a good person, perhaps – you suffer for your mistakes in a way the truly wicked never have to. If your husband suffers now, it is because he is a good man, Roberta, or at the very least, he desires to be so.”

“He _is_ a good man, Leo. I just wish he could believe it himself.”

“Then remind him, Bobbie. Don't coddle him, don't protect him from his mistakes, but don't let him forget, either.”

* * *

Roberta found Richard sitting out in the grass in the small private courtyard off of their sitting room. He was rolling a ball to Pearl who was sitting nearby, and trying to convince their daughter to push it back to him rather than pick it up and chew on it. Roberta watched them from the doorway for a few minutes.

“Come on Pearly! Roll it back to daddy! Just give it a little push, you can do it!”

_At least he still talks to one of us_, she thought somewhat ungenerously. Pearl drooled on the ball for a minute, then dropped it to her side, giggling. Losing interest in the game, she abandoned the ball entirely, crawling over to Richard and pulling herself into his lap. Richard started to lift her onto his shoulder but paused, taking a sniff. “Ewwww, I think _someone_ needs a fresh nappy. Come on, let's go back in.” Richard hoisted himself up onto his long legs ungracefully, one arm full of less-than-daisy-fresh baby. He looked up and froze when he saw Roberta, giving her a rather uncertain, questioning half-smile. “Oh, Bobbie. I didn't see you there.”

Roberta reached out, taking Pearl from him, and he turned around to retrieve the damp ball from the ground, flicking bits of grass off of it before pocketing it. “Why don't we take lunch, Richard? It's a bit early but I've worked up an appetite in the sparring yard.”

“Oh, of course. Pearl needs a change, though, first, I'll take care of it if you don't want to.”

“I'll go and fetch Audrey and send word to the kitchen maid to have something sent up for us. Why don't you go wash up a bit? You've got some grass, just there.” She pointed at his nose and he wiped at it, giving her that vulnerable, uncertain look again before heading back inside. _He knows I want to talk, and he's frightened of what I will say_. Roberta sighed, wondering why everything went pear-shaped immediately these days. _What do I even say? Should I say anything at all_?

* * *

Roberta left Pearl in Audrey's care for the afternoon, determined to spend a bit of time with Richard, whether he really wanted it or not. He was essentially avoiding her at this point. Not physically, but he'd somehow perfected the trick of inhabiting a room without actually being present in it recently, and she wasn't impressed. The kitchen had sent up a loaf of fresh bread and a platter of cheeses and cold meats along with a few recently harvested autumn apples from the trees out in the main courtyard. The days were still warm but were growing shorter, and the nights had a definitely chill to them now. In another month or so, she expected the first snow would arrive.

Roberta pulled her chair around the table until she was seated beside him, rather than across from him, and began silently cutting slices of apple and cheese. She would eat one and then pass the second to him, alternating between them. He wasn't what he had once been, of course, and no longer demanded to be fed by his cook like an oversized toddler, but she also knew he still enjoyed that sort of attention occasionally. “You know I love you, Richard. At least, I hope you do?”

“What? Of course, Bobbie. I love you too, I always will.”

“Good. Whatever happens, I want you to remember that.”

“I do try to be worthy–“

Roberta dropped the knife onto the platter, the loud metallic clattering startling even herself. “Love is not something which is _earned_, Richard, it is _given_, or it is not love at all, I don't care what your useless parents or Gareth or anyone else has been like! Do you only love me when I please you? Does it disappear when I annoy you? Do you only love Pearl when she is sweet and not when she is screaming from colic in the middle of the night?”

“Wh-what? No! Of course not Bobbie, that's not what I meant at all, I just–“

“Then why do you think you are somehow so different from the rest of us? That you should be held to such a higher standard than all the rest of the world?”

Richard sat, hunched over beside her, the silence filling up the room around them. One tear slipped free, sliding down into his beard, and then another, although he remained quiet. Roberta pushed the remnants of their lunch aside and stood, pulling Richard up and through the door nearby and toward the couch before the fireplace their bedroom. After pushing him onto the couch and sitting on the opposite end from him, she pulled at him until he was stretched out with his head in her lap so she could stroke his hair and pet him a bit. “What am I going to do with you, pup-pup?”

“I don't know... I'm sorry, Bobbie. I don't mean to be a disappointment. Seems to be the only thing I'm good at, I'm afraid...”

“You can stop that sort of talk right now, Richard. It's bullshit and I don't know why you insist on repeating it.”

“Madalena–“

“Madalena is dead. You tried to apologize to her for what you did, but she didn't accept it. And now she is dead, and there is nothing you can do for her, nothing you can give to her, nothing you can take from her. And punishing yourself will not change any of this in the slightest.”

“Then what do I do?”

“Nothing, Richard. You learn from your mistake, and go on about your business. That's all any of us can do. You aren't some special exception, crown or no crown. In any case, I don't think there's much risk of you kidnapping brides again, as I must warn you that I am _not_ the sharing sort.”

“But a real king should–“

“Be an example for his people? You can do that best by getting back to work instead of hiding. And you _are_ a real king, Richard, even when you don't want to be one. There are plenty of them who aren't worth spit in this world, and maybe you screwed things up in the past, but you're shaping up to be quite a good one right now, if you will just allow yourself to move forward. Done right, it's clearly not an easy job, but I promise you one thing – I will be here with you every step of the way, if you'll have me.”

Richard smiled up at Roberta from her lap, reaching up to cup her cheek. “Forever, Bobbie. I wouldn't be anything without you.”

Roberta tugged at his bearded chin affectionately. “That's a bit of an exaggeration, pup-pup, but I'll take the compliment.”

* * *

Richard sat cross-legged on the hard stone platform, occasionally glancing upward at the figure seated on the winged throne beside him. He recognized the king, this time, and knew, in a distant sort of way, that he was dreaming again.

“What's it like?”

The king looked down at him, grayer haired than Richard had last seen him, with more lines on his face, but the kind grey eyes were the same. “Oh, you'll soon find out.”

“I'm not really sure I'm up to the task.”

“Neither was I. Nothing worthwhile comes easily and nothing is ever guaranteed. One must make the effort, regardless, lest the world fall into ruin.”

“I make a lot of mistakes, though. A _lot_ of them. It's actually sort of a miracle that I've survived this long.”

“I made plenty of mistakes as well. Learn from them, and do not repeat them.”

“Hmph. You sound like my wife, now.”

“She is wise, then, and you should heed her council.”

“I do! I try to, at least.”

“Then you have made the first step, already. Surround yourself with those like her. No good king truly rules alone. Remember that, and you will do well enough.”

“All the others do is fight, though, and this isn't going to just magically make them all start listening to me, or make me know what the best thing to do is... I just don't know if I'm ready for–“

The king stood abruptly and stepped down from the throne, turning to face him. He removed the winged crown from his own head and dropped it down on Richard's head without ceremony. “You'll manage.”

* * *

It took several more months to organize the expedition, gathering supplies and recruiting volunteers, but Richard was intent upon keeping a promise he'd made. There had also been the matter of the state of the roads in the eastern reaches of his kingdom, and the threat of lingering goblin-men, but Leofwine had pulled together a swift response to the latter, at least, and excess brush had been cleared away from the former.

Word had spread quickly, once he'd made the announcement. Land to be cleared and tilled, looking for willing farmers and tradesmen - only those who owned no land nor property of their own need apply. He was already getting pissed off nobles banging on his door, demanding to know why their peasantry were suddenly upping sticks and moving away. “Well, you could always pay them to stay if you want to keep them around” never seemed to get a positive response for some reason. He'd have problems from them eventually, he knew, but he'd deal with them as they came. He had a city to fill and feed in the meantime.

Richard stood on the parapet of the small castle they'd called home for over three years now, with Pearl (now almost a year and a half old and more trouble than ever) squirming in his arms. He'd miss the place, but Gareth seemed happy enough with the gift; he'd had already ripped down all the remaining banners and replaced them with paintings of jousting dogs and various distant relatives. Gareth was... not quite the same Gareth these days. Quieter, Richard thought. Suffice it to say, they did not speak about Madalena. Richard had attempted to bring up the subject just once, and Gareth had simply stood up and walked out of the room, and Richard had not tried it a second time. An unpleasant chapter of both of their lives had closed, and Richard would have to content himself with that.

Richard waved to Sid below as the young knight trotted in on his horse through the main gait below, a new set of armor reflecting the afternoon sunlight as he weaved around the crowd of carriages waiting in the courtyard. Shifting Pearl up onto his shoulders, he went back inside to find Gareth barking at some servant about a crooked painting. Richard walked up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder and jumping backward immediately so as not to be caught by Gareth's reflexive punch.

“Oh, Richard, it's you. Didn't realize you were still here.”

“Not for much longer, my friend. It'll all be yours soon enough.” Richard swung Pearl down off his shoulders and she shrieked with laughter. Richard held her outward, dangling from her armpits as though presenting her as a gift. Gareth cringed at the noise and backed away from the child like she were contagious, but Richard pretended not to notice. “You could get one of these if you like, they do brighten up a place.”

Gareth stared down at Pearl as if she might suddenly explode. “Not much good with kids, sire. They're more women's business.” Gareth gave Richard a pointed look, which Richard also pretended not to notice.

Richard settled Pearl in the crook of one arm, rolling his eyes at his old friend. “Oh, do lighten up, Gareth. Although if you don't truly want them, then take my advice for once, and _don't_ have children, nobody needs a father who doesn't want them. Anyhow, Bobbie's waiting for us with the rest of the caravan, so I'm afraid I can't stay and chat. Say 'bye-bye' to Uncle Gareth, Pearly!” Richard turned and left as his daughter waved at a scowling Gareth, blowing raspberries over her father's shoulder. “That's my girl!”

Richard found Bobbie outside at the head of the waiting caravan and passed Pearl to her. Roberta ducked into the carriage to hand her to Audrey in turn. Richard would miss the home where his daughter had been born. Indeed, it had been the first place that had truly felt like a home to him, but he was confident it was in good hands, even if Gareth remained as grumpy as ever.

* * *

“It's time, sire. Come along, now...”

Richard stood up from the bench with the broken wings at the end of the pier, taking Roberta's hand and following the elf down the winding path through the city, gathering a parade of curious followers as he went. People had slowly been filling up all the empty spaces over the last few weeks, setting up shop in the old forges and workshops, filling up the empty pubs, and turning the houses into homes again. The old library, a truly massive thing Richard had discovered, was more intact than any of them had expected, and Elladan had promised him that he'd teach some of his people to read and copy over the surviving scrolls, and that once things had settled down, he'd actually tell Richard all those stories he'd promised.

They'd amassed quite a crowd by the time the reached the main gates below. Elladan halted Richard and Roberta with an uplifted palm and walked through the gates, turning out of sight for a moment to exchange words with somebody. A moment later, Leofwine appeared, carrying a small nondescript wooden box, and despite its humble appearance, Richard had a feeling he knew what was inside it.

Elladan gave him a wink as he opened it and lifted the winged crown from Richard's dreams from within. “I did tell you it was hidden elsewhere, did I not?” Elladan stopped before him, giving him a nod. Richard tilted his head, his brow creasing and the edge of his mouth curling up in confusion, until Roberta jabbed him with an elbow and a hissed instruction to _take it already!_

A slight commotion alerted him to Tad Cooper's arrival, the dragon alighting atop the wall just above the gates. At the appearance of his dragon pal, Richard shook off his hesitance, looking around at the gawking crowd. A memory, though not his own, returned to him. He felt suddenly as though another king, grey-eyed and kind, was standing behind him – a long line of them, in fact, winding away into history and reflected in the eyes of the ageless being before him. Richard picked up the crown and held it up for the gathering to see, still dazzled himself by the reflection of the bright sunlight off of the – _what had Elladan called it? _– mithril object.

_Oh, bother, what did he say? _The strange, melodious words had long evaporated from Richard's waking memory, and he couldn't have pronounced half of them if he'd had a week to practice anyway, but the understanding of them had burned itself into his mind. “Out of the Great Sea to Middle Earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world!”

Turning suddenly his wife, Richard thrust the crown into her startled hands, and knelt before the Queen whose support had brought him here. She laughed as she placed the crown upon him.


	7. Epilogue

“You know, Richard, I never knew all this was out here, and I've done quite a bit of travelling in my time. I mean how long has this all been hiding away in the forest?”

“A few thousand years, I think. You can ask Elladan about it, but I must warn you – his stories can go on for hours. He's the skinny one with the pointy ears you met earlier.”

Galavant nodded, running his hands over the seamless white stone of the Tower of Ecthelion (as Richard now knew its proper name was). Isabella was still several tiers down with Roberta, inspecting the city guards' quarters and probably sparring in a friendly match by now, if Galavant knew his wife. “How did you even find it?”

“Quite by accident. It's kind of a funny story, actually, there were these goblin bandits and-”

Galavant laughed and waved him off, knowing when one of Richard's breathless, rambling recitations was oncoming. “Alright, alright! You can tell me over dinner.”

“You know, I really have your wife's cousin to thank for it all. If he hadn't sent me off on some wild goose chase after those bandits, I probably never would have come out here.”

“Harry? Oh lord, that pest? Do you know he came by last year, demanding that 'Cousin Izzy' come to his kingdom right away and find him a wife? Said she owed him, since she broke off their engagement, didn't care a bit that she was eight months pregnant either, just expected her to drop everything and come running!”

“What did Isabella do?”

“Told him to put his big king pants on and go find some nice girl who could put up with him on his own. Preferably unrelated.”

“You know, I keep offering to send Leofwine to train his soldiers for him, now that they've moved up from wooden to bronze swords, but he never responds... anyway, I hope Isabella warned him that kidnapping is _not _a good way of starting a marriage.”

“I'm... not sure, but she probably did. Listen, Richard, about Madalena...”

Richard held up a hand up to halt Galavant. “No, I really don't need you telling me not to blame myself again. It's... very sweet of you, really, but it's over, Galavant. She hurt you, she hurt me, she _really _hurt Gareth, but in the end, I hurt her first, but there's nothing to be done about it. She's gone and that is that. Come on, I'll show you the path up the mountain, there's this nice little grove of old trees up there. Elladan says one of the new saplings we planted should be ready to move down to the courtyard next year.”

Galavant threw an arm over Richard's shoulder, giving him a peculiar sort of smile. It gave Richard a moment of pause, but he decided not to ruin the moment, and just grabbed his Galavant's hand instead, pulling him toward the door. He might not be one of the wise kings of the ancient past, but Richard had good friends, and things would work out.


End file.
